Time Once Again to Bring A Dead Tree Into The House

Christmas is upon us again, and what better way to recognize and celebrate this cherished season than to drag a dead tree into the house and plop it down in the middle of the living room.

I love Christmas trees - odd as the tradition is when you really stop and think about it – and over the years we have tried just about every way there is to get just the right tree for the holidays. I say just about every way – we have thus far stopped short of going the route of the artificial tree. Like silk flowers, wax fruit, and videotaped football games, it’s an easy solution but has somehow always lacked the effectiveness of the real thing.

At first, we did the whole trek-into-the-woods-and-cut-the-perfect-tree routine. At first blush, this seemed to encompass the true essence of the season, and seemed so Currier and Ives picture-perfect.

At least, in every way but reality.

Tree-hunting day would begin at dawn, packing the truck with saws, winches, ropes, chains, snow shoes, survival rations, maps, GPS, snowmobiles, multiple sets of Gore-Tex, and several pairs of infrared sap-sensor goggles. Then it was off to the hunt.

It’s a proven fact that every avid Christmas tree hunter-gatherer, like every fisherman, has that special “secret place” that only he knows about, a pristine stretch of remote forest where the sun shines warm and perfect Christmas trees grow wild in acre upon acre, begging to be taken home.

Unfortunately, that spot moves every year.

So instead, the typical tree hunt involved: 17 hours of trudging through waist-deep snow; angry accusations of how the rampant stupidity of the wife/husband/child/friend/neighbor/brother-in-law got us lost again; frozen hair; lamentations of how we should have gone to the secret spot that only I/she/he knew about as opposed to the lousy, picked-over, God-forsaken spot that the wife/husband/child/friend/neighbor/brother-in-law drug us to, and the final cutting of a two-and-a-half foot tree with eight widely-spaced branches.

And, no matter what, there was always the guilt as the saw bit in and the little tree fell. The guilt – worse even than the frozen hair – is what finally led us to abandon tree-cutting in the wilds of nature. I mean, what kind of environmental sadists were Currier and Ives?

Well, the obvious answer to that dilemma was to buy a live tree. What could be better – a living tree, an environmentally-responsible symbol of the season, and something we could plant in the yard right after the holidays. There was a bit of consternation over why a tree that was sitting in a plastic bucket of dirt should cost $265 as opposed to 20 bucks for a cut one at a lot, but hey, it was an environmentally-responsible symbol of the season, and something we could plant in the yard right after the holidays.

So we got the truck, fired up the forklift, hauled the 1200 pound monster into the living room, ruined the carpet, and watered and fertilized and tended to the damn thing every day as instructed. Then, on New Year’s Day, we carefully removed the decorations, got the truck, fired up the forklift, and hauled our environmentally-responsible symbol of the season out to the perfect spot in the yard – only to find the dirt frozen solid to a depth of 14 feet. So for the next four months we trudged out and watered and fertilized and tended to the damn thing every day as instructed until the ground thawed and we could plant it.

It died a week later.

So we next switched to Christmas tree lots, where every tree looks the same and the hunt is over in four minutes. At least, we reasoned, these trees were grown for this purpose, and as long as we recycled it at the end of the season we could select one with no more sense of guilt than selecting, say, four perfect ears of corn for a summer barbecue.

So we made our selection, tied it to the top of the car, cruised on home singing Christmas carols with nary a worry in the world, and pulled contentedly into the garage – completely forgetting that the tree was tied on top of the car and stripping off every branch on one whole side as we scraped it along the top of the garage door opening. It gave new meaning to the term “bare spot”, but on the upside it did fit remarkably well against the wall.

Another advantage to a tree from a lot is that it eliminates the agonizing over where in the forest to go to cut the perfect tree, or agonizing over how to get the live one into the house and than keep it alive until we could plant it. Instead, we could now agonize over which was the least-dead dead tree in the lot, water and tend to it every day as instructed, and try and figure out just which shade of brown the needles should achieve before it becomes a full-blown fire hazard.

Maybe it is time to reconsider that nice 7-foot artificial pine. Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good night!