In case you’ve been living in a cave, the holiday season is in full swing, especially as there’s less than a week until Christmas Day.
As usual, I procrastinated about getting a Christmas tree, and the result is what one would expect when shopping at a cleared-out tree lot.
Another less-than-perfect tree.
We went to the lot and there were quite a few Christmas trees left. Most looked like they’d been spray painted back in August, but we know the real trees don’t last very long.
There was a new variety of Christmas trees, but the needles were so long and full, our ornaments wouldn’t stand a chance.
We chose one and, honestly, I haven’t a clue if it’s a Scotch pine, White pine or Douglas fir tree. All I know is the price and height were what we wanted so we secured the tree in the back of the truck.
The next day, I came home, and my husband had the tree in the stand. From the front, it looked great. The tree was round and full, not too big or too small. When I sat down at the kitchen table, however, the true picture of the tree came into focus.
The trunk was crooked from the top to about a foot from the bottom. We didn’t notice that weirdness at the tree lot, mostly because I focused on the bottom of the tree.
If it’s too skinny, the tree stand can’t tighten up that much. If the trunk’s too thick, it won’t fit in the stand. How do I know this? Because we’ve bought both a too-skinny tree and a too-fat tree.
Towels and a saw saved the day.
About the same time I was groaning about the crooked tree, a memory popped up on Facebook. It was a photo of our tree last year.
Guess what.
That tree was just as crooked as this one.
Maybe that’s the way we shop. We’re drawn to the less-than-perfect trees.
One year, we had a tree that was so dead, just walking past it caused the needles to fall off. The grandkids had fun on Christmas Eve blowing on the tree and watching the needles fall like snowflakes.
Then there was the tree that almost fell over. I insisted on putting it up when my husband wasn’t home. He always trims the tree so the branches don’t get in the way of the stand and so we can fit gifts underneath the boughs.
Even though the tree is sturdy, I whine because half the tree is gone when he’s finished. I decided one year to put the tree up when he was at work.
I only put a few inches of the trunk in the stand because those lower branches were in the way.
Later that night, I was patting myself on the back for getting the tree up and keeping all the branches.
That’s when I noticed the ornaments were leaning. The tree was going to fall over during the middle of the night. I roused one of my sons out of bed and had him hold the tree upright while I sawed off the bottom branches and secured the tree in the stand.
The “I-told-you-so’s” lasted for the next five Christmases.
One year, I ran out of time and only put on half the lights and just a few of the ornaments. The angel topper didn’t even make the cut.
There was the year I had one strand of white lights and three strands of multi-colored lights. During the day, the effect wasn’t noticeable. But at night, a fourth of the tree sported blinking colored lights while the other fourth was solid white lights.
Once again, we have a less-than-perfect tree this year. But I’m not after perfect. Perfect isn’t any fun. Without these mishaps and odd Christmas trees, we wouldn’t have any memorable stories to laugh about.
I’d rather have those memories than a perfect Christmas tree.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.