I've spent some time thinking about the holidays here lately and have found that I've been sharing my Christmas tree stories with folks too. So, I thought I would share them with you here. I'm not good with years and am not so sure that they are being told in order, but I hope you get a laugh out of them anyway.
The first instance I remember is one year we heard a noise coming from the tree and when we started checking it out, at first, the noise stopped, which was good since we didn't see anything. But as my mom kept looking through the branches she saw a bug of the beetle persuasion. As she kept looking, it turned out she found the rest of the beetles immediate and extended family members. She immediately picked up the tree, lights and decorations still intact, and threw it out the front door. I'm pretty sure there was a Christmas tree shaped patch of burned grass in the back yard after that incident.
The next occurrence was a time when we didn't even have the money to purchase a tree and our uncle bought one for us. After he set it up we got the decorations and lights out of the attic and the decorating fun started. After it was decorated, my mom and sister were in the kitchen while I was in the living room watching TV. Some time passed and I smelled something then noticed the smoke coming from the tree. Now remember, I was little when this took place. So I called to the kitchen telling my mom the tree was smoking. She and my sister hurriedly made their way to the living room to see the tree. The next thing I know my mom is telling my sister to open the front door and mom has the tree, decorations, lights and stand and was going out the front door. That tree definitely left a Christmas tree shaped patch of burned grass in the yard.
Another incidence was the year that we had a great big and full tree that my mom had spent hours decorating with white lights and her glass ornaments that she absolutely loved. Flashback: It had taken a while to get the tree to be straight in the stand. It had fallen a few times before it was decorated so we were a little weary of it, but it had stood on its own for a while so we thought all should have been good. Unfortunately we were wrong. Flash forward: I'm sitting on the floor in the living room, watching TV, when I hear my mom yell at me to move. As I quickly moved out of the way, I heard the sound of shattering glass against the wooden entry way. The tree had fallen and the majority of my mom's ornaments were now broken. As she walked into the living room, she opened the back door, then proceeded to the tree. She picked it up, carried it to the back door and threw it onto the lawn. I don't remember this one ending up in flames. J
Now on to some more colorful accounts.
One year my mom sent my sister and me with my stepdad to go get a tree while she got all of the lights and decorations out from the storage closet under the stairs. When we arrived at the tree lot the first thing we noticed were the flocked trees. As we were looking at all of the wonderfully flocked white trees, we noticed something peculiar off to the side. It was a flocked tree, but it wasn't white. It was hot pink! Yea! Somehow we talked him into buying the tree and we were so excited on our way home. It wasn't until we got home that we realized mom was going to be unhappy with our choice. When we brought the tree in the house and it was set-up in its stand we called for mom to come downstairs. As she came down the second flight first glance at her revealed a smile, but if you allowed your eyes to linger, you were able to see the transformation from excitement, to confusion to shock and eventually to annoyance and possibly anger. I believe her response to the tree was, "What is that?" to which we answered in unison, "Our Christmas tree!" with a smile on our faces. She was not happy at all to the point that she actually pondered going to buy a second tree and setting it up in the dining room.
I remember many mumblings about white trash from her that year, as well as the next year when she sent us again to buy a tree with the stipulation that it could not be flocked pink or any other "loud" color. So off we went to the lot with our instructions. While we were looking at the nice green trees, we noticed they had flocked trees of many colors. There was white, of course, a pink one similar to the one we had the year before, yellow, orange, an avocado green and a light powder blue. We asked if we could get the avocado green one and after moments of hesitation we were told "No. It's really not worth the argument that would follow when we get home." As we went around and continued to look at trees we came back to the blue one and gave our best pitch. It would be wonderful with lots of bright white lights and silver ornaments on it. Mom would love it once it was decorated, really she would! But when we got it home, she really, really wasn't. Even after it was decorated, she still wasn't amused, not at all.
The next year mom went and picked out the tree herself. To think about it, she did from then on. Guess she had trust issues after that! J
There there's Christmas with our dad. He always had the same fake tree with a funky mustard yellow tree skirt. The cool thing was the trains under the tree. He had a train he bough when he was a kid It was a big train. the cars were probably 2.5 to 3" tall and the engine would blow steam that smelled vaguely of wood. It was always laid out with the larges circle around the tree. My sister had a train that was a little smaller than dad's and it was laid out to where it circled the tree just inside of his train. It could really move! Then there was mine. It was little. The cars were about an inch tall and if you got it going to fast it would jump the track!
Now, our dad wasn't the biggest fan of Christmas and I don't think he enjoyed the whole tree bit, which was solidified the year he thought it would be great to have a Charlie Brown tree. He went to the back yard, retrieved a limp broken limb from one of his pine trees and set it up in the living room. There he put on a couple of stray icicles from the decoration box and found a broken ornament to accessorize as well. I wish I had a picture of that!
Those are my Christmas tree stories. I hope you got a smile and maybe even a laugh. I know Halloween hasn't even come and I'm talking about trees, but you wouldn't know that by the look of the stores. Santa is apparently already on his way!
