Oh Christmas Tree

Earlier this week, my family ventured out to our traditional spot (a King Soopers Parking Lot) and picked out our 2010 Christmas Tree. It was a fairly tall and fat Douglas Fir. Not a bad looking tree. It was the coldest day of the year so far when we ventured out, so we didn't take long to pick it. It was in the mid-20's. It makes you less picky. We went inside to pay for it and find someone who could cut an inch off the base of the tree, so that it sucked up the water better. The store manager found a employee who was from the Ukraine (the best I could tell) and didn't speak very good English. When I asked her to cut an inch off the bottom of the trunk and smiled and handed me twine. I explained again that I wanted it cut. I made hand-motions this time. She said "Ahhh...scissors." I shook my head and said "No...saw!" After a few more attempts at communication, I went inside to find the manager again. She found someone else who secured a saw and cut the trunk. Unfortunately, it was at a weird angle rather than straight, which made the tree lean awkwardly when we got home and put it in the base. Oh well. We stuffed the tree in the trunk of our Ford Taurus with 4 of the 6 feet sticking out the trunk. I secure it in with bungee cords. We drove the five minutes home with the strong scent of pine permeating our nostrils. I carried it to our patio and tried to fix the sawing job. Joi and I stuffed it through our door and put it in place. I asked Joi to hold it straight while I turned the bolts in the stand to hold in it place. After a few minutes of turning and twisting, while laying under the tree, I arose only to find the tree leaning like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In Joi's defense, it did look straight from her angle. So, we tried again and finally made it look straight. We turned on some Christmas music and had Hot Chocolate and Hot Apple Cider...and brownies. We took out our lights and wrapped them around the tree. We pulled out our ornaments and relived some of the stories behind them and their meaning. We laughed and took pictures. We lit up the lights and I finally placed our fiber-optic angel on the top of the tree. It was complete. We made another Christmas memory and we did it without stress, bad attitudes, or broken ornaments. It was a successful and wonderful Christmas experience. The car continued to smell strongly like pine for the next few days, until I found a sprig of the pine tree in our backseat and removed it. We had a good time and the tree is beautiful. It's wonderful to smell the tree and see the blinking lights and all of the special ornaments. Also, Joi put this year's addition to our ornaments on our tree. It was a small book with the title of Joi's soon to be published book and the first chapter inside of it, made by her best friend, Kim. Read here for more details. It was a wonderful time together.