I didn’t know I could be so grateful for a tree. I mean, I love trees overall. I appreciate their contributions to our environment. We plant scores of them every year. I’ve seen The Lorax, after all, which I highly recommend.
But our entire family is just completely enamored of our Christmas tree this year. It is ginormous. Ridiculously ginormous. Not “Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree” ginormous, but enough so that my son recently saw a perfectly normal-sized tree at my folks’ house and asked where the rest of it was.
Some people use fishing line to tie the tops of their giant trees to their living room walls. My husband, being my husband, had another idea. He built a 4′ by 3′ wooden platform, to which he then screwed the store-bought tree stand. So far, so good. The tree has remained upright. The only problem is that they don’t make tree skirts big enough to cover our souped-up stand. Fortunately, my husband and children refuse to use top sheets on their beds (I don’t understand their aversion, but pick your battles), so I have plenty of those lying around to do the job.
Now, as they say, size doesn’t matter. And I’m pretty sure we would still be smitten with our tree if it were a fraction of its size. I think it’s appeal has something to do with the fact that it is “unsheared,” which I didn’t know was a thing. Nor did I know how much of a difference this made. Our tree looks far more natural than trees of Christmases past, and the nonuniform branches make trimming the tree infinitely easier. As in, we can actually hang the ornaments from the branches, rather than basically stuffing them into the tree.
Let me clear up a little something. Ours is by no means a designer tree. It is a hodge-podge of popsicle-stick manger scenes and pretty glass balls, with the occasional salt-dough snowman thrown in for good measure. There is a Precious Moments ornament from the year I was born – 1978 (Yes, this year I celebrate my 40th Christmas on this Earth). But we have even older ornaments on our tree. Some of my favorites are the wooden cut-outs my parents painted themselves back when they were first together and too broke to buy ready-made ornaments.
Then there are the shiny, silly ornaments that Dan and I purchased at Target for our first Christmas together (That was the infamous year that I supposedly abandoned him while he was lying in the mud sawing down our tree, by wandering off to the tree hut to claim my free hot cider. I don’t remember this alleged event, but Dan still talks about it. Every. Year. Bless his muddy, hard-working heart.). There are a handful of lovely, fancy-schmancy ornaments from Christopher Radko, Swarovski or Old World Christmas. We did not purchase these – they were gifts from folks who probably have trees much more pristine than our own. Because, of course, we also have the kids’ ornaments. They are made of the aforementioned salt dough and popsicle sticks, but also of construction paper, Legos, sequins and plastic beads. And I love each and every one. They all co-exist merrily in some miracle of holiday magic.
We add to our ornament collection every year. I buy one ornament for each family member, something symbolizing their current interests or achievements. This means we have everything from an Elsa figurine to a karate kid to a big ole buck hanging from our tree. (If you have met my crew, you can probably pair the ornament to the family member.) On top of that, each of us gets to pick out one ornament when we visit the tree farm. For the past 8 or 9 years, we have gone to Wild Rose Choose and Cut. Honestly, to begin with, this was mostly because they mailed us a postcard with their address on it every year, so it was easy to find them. We’re lazy like that. But we also love it there. We love the hayride out to the fields and the hunt for the perfect tree. We (especially poor Dan) love the hot apple cider. We love that everyone is just so happy to be there. The holiday spirit virtually sparkles in the air. Secret: It almost makes a person want to own a Christmas tree farm. If said person didn’t already have their hands full. Maybe someday…
The trees of the same variety are all the same price, whether your tree is over 14 feet tall, like ours, or a more reasonable 7 feet. This means that a giant tree is a true bargain. It also means that we end up spending more money on our new ornaments than we do on the tree itself. Oh well. Christmas memories are priceless, right?
And we are making memories. Baylor, at 9 years old, came up and hugged me as we were decorating the tree and told me it was his favorite night of the year. And, that, my friends, truly is priceless. Never mind that tree decorating was more of week-long endeavor than a single night this year. Carving out time between the kids’ activities and our work schedules, a good seven days elapsed between choosing the tree and hanging the star. That’s okay, though. It only extended the fun.
Speaking of fun, the kiddos thought it would be hilarious to place all 11 of our tree-shaped ornaments together on one branch. Right smack in front of the tree. They called it the “double-triple-double tree,” or some such nonsense. Good thing our trusty scout elves, Pinky and Nilla, were supervising the decorating process. The elves *might* have performed a touch of rearranging before departing for their nightly trip to the North Pole that evening. I can handle a hodge-podge, but apparently I need a well-balanced hodge-podge. There are limits, folks.
Yes, limits. So…Dan lets the kids take turns hanging the star on top of the tree each year. This seemed fine, in theory, especially when we were dealing with small, liftable children and trees of a more human height. It is no longer okay. This year was (please help me) Ryan’s turn. And there was just no way she was getting to the top of that tree, short of an intricate system of pulleys and OSHA-approved harnesses. Good sense (meaning me) just wouldn’t allow it. So the star was hung in a middle-ish part of the tree and later relocated, probably also by those redecorating scout elves.
