Oh Christmas Tree

For many years we would have a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.  You know, the sad little tree that no one else wanted.  As far back as my Dad could remember he had a nightmarish time getting a tree.  His older sister would send him off to get a tree the day of Christmas Eve (in those days you didn’t get the tree until the day of, apparently) and for one reason or another he was always late getting to the tree stand.  Then the inevitable would happen.  No foot for the tree.  As I may have mentioned before my father was never a carpenter and on Christmas Eve it was very apparent.  With his father away and later passed away, it would be my father’s responsibility to get the tree standing upright.  One memorable Christmas he used a coal bucket for the tree stand and there it swayed rather precariously as they put on the candles which would be lit later in the evening.  My grandmother and aunt must have had nerves of steel to even think about lighting those candles.

 Getting the Christmas tree in our house was also high drama.  With all my father’s past experience haunting him he could hardly wait to throw the responsibility on to his children.  But first I recall some very nasty drives to the tree lot.  My mother always had an obsession with wanting a skimpy looking tree as they looked more “Danish” while my father was only desperate to grab one and be on his way.  We usually ended up with a bushy or crooked tree and we then had to listen to my father muttering under his breath as he got the tree into the stand.  It always seemed to sway or lean.  Because he had no tools he would use his butcher knife to whittle away at the foot to make it fit into the stand and then it would be too thin and he would have to stick other things into the foot to hold up the tree.  As I say, it was a nightmare proceeding for everyone concerned.

            One terrible year my father finally ended his struggles and we began decorating the tree.  It was looking really beautiful and finally we put up the rather ragged looking angel.  Perfection.  That was the year of the cat.  Yes, I had finally persuaded my parents to let me have a pet and Messe came innocently into our home.  At Christmas time he would have been about 9 months old.  Naturally he was curious to check out the tree.  Naturally we kids were somewhere else in teh house when Messe decided to climb up the tree and crash!  Down went the tree.  Everyone  rushed from all corners of the house when we heard the crash.  Jeanette started crying, I started searching for Messe and then out came my father who took one look at the disaster and Roar!  The next thing we knew the tree was thrown like a javelin out into the driveway and beyond into the neighbour’s yard.  John happened to be outside and saw the tree sail through the air! 

Now Erik, Peter and I started wailing. 

            “It’s going to be a sad Christmas” we cried.

            My mother managed to calm down my father and back it went into the house, propped up by rocks at the foot.

            Artificial trees suddenly started to look better and better to my father but the year we got the artificial tree was also the year he was working late and we ended up with a really terrible silver tree.  Short too.  Fortunately even my dad hated it so much we only used it one year and then went back to getting our own.  But by this time we kids were the ones who were sent off to the tree lot to haul it back.  We didn’t have a sleigh either, we just hauled it back with the old heave ho method.  We still struggled to get the tree upright in those stupid weak foot stands.  One year I remember Erik manfully got the tree home on his own but the tree was really fat at the bottom.  He sawed off the extra branch at the foot not realizing that it took half the tree with it.  It was a very lopsided tree and my mother was so critical that poor Erik went off to shed some tears on his own, he was so upset that my mother was so upset. 

            The day they finally invented the mega foot was the day my father thought he’d died and gone to heaven!

            Yes trees in our house have always been Critical Drama.  These days my mother always says she only wants a foot high tree.  Last year I bought her one of those Granny trees from Michael’s.  It’s a foot high, and the Granny head has a tree for a body, and her legs are planted on terra firma!  The minute I saw it I said to myself “that is perfect for Mom”!