A True Tree Story....

This is one of those stories that has become a family legend....it is really funny...so if you can make it through the sap (no pun intended) in the beginning I promise that you will get a chuckle!

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I am going to share some of my favorite Tree stories. Plus, later I am going to post a really cute Tree Christmas card that you can make. It takes a little bit of work but it is really cute!!

Tree story - legend - started in 1980, it was the first Christmas after my Grandfather died. He was the nucleus of our family....literally the glue that kept everyone together. He died in September, very suddenly and my Grandmother did not handle it well at all....who does??....So that Christmas it was even more important to my Mom and Uncles to continue with the family tradition of going out into the woods to cut it down the right tree as a family and bring it back to my Grandmother. Christmas was a spectacular time of year in our family....it was always the greatest!! Beautiful decorations everywhere...wreath making parties with our extended family, Christmas parties...it was just wonderful!

We bundled up, it was snowing, we all got on the trailer and my Uncle Breen drove the tractor into the far corner of one of the front fields where we always found the most "beautiful" trees. It was truly a BEAUTIFUL moment....at least in my little 7 year old mind....

We found a tree, a tree that was literally a tree within a tree. The part of the tree that we wanted was at the top of this one particular tree...does that make any sense?? I loved it, it looked like it was the "perfect" tree. A BIG, FULL bushy Christmas Tree!

Here is where the fun begins....

My uncles set out at this point to cut down the top portion of the tree without cutting down the entire tree. Why they did it this way I don't know??? Maybe they didn't want to be wasteful??? I just don't know, but it sure was funny.....There was a lot of cursing, a teeny bit of name calling (I never said we were the Waltons), but in the end a lot of laughing!

They get the tree down, get it on the trailer and then we head back to the house. It was really one of those picture perfect moments....bringing the tree back to The Big House for my Grandmothers approval....what we were to do with it if she didn't approve? I don't know? But anyway...it was picturesque!

Now, I am not sure if this has ever happened to you, but those darn trees never seem to look so big out there in the fields! (Mistake #1)

I was only 7 at the time so I was doing a lot of "over seeing" of the following events. Soaking it all in....
Once we got the tree off the trailer my Uncles thought it was too tall, so they cut a chunk off the bottom (Mistake #2).... Up to the house we go only to realize that it wouldn't fit through the door. Now, we didn't have "small" doors, we had big huge 200 year old plantation doors....that tree wouldn't fit for anything! So, they decided to cut off some of the branches...from the inside of the tree of course! (Mistake #3). A few branches come off....back for a second attempt through the door....no luck....a few more branches, more cursing....some whispering, etc. Do you see where I am going with this??? (These become the mistakes where I start to lose count....) It just got worse from there....

Once the tree is finally in the house, they put it in the stand which sat in between the double doors of the living room and dining room, only to realize that the tree is "too short"!! So, out of the stand it comes and my Uncles NAIL a piece of the chunk back onto the bottom of the tree!!!

We now switch from mistakes to secrets - secrets that I am supposed to keep FOR-EV-ER at the risk of upsetting my Grandmother! LOL!

The tree goes back into the stand and of course it doesn't stand straight, how can it? We have to tie the tree between the doors to stabilize it. This just about puts my Grandmother right on her ear...if she only knew what else was going on while she was in the kitchen! After the tree is up and stabilized, some rather bare spots in the tree become very apparent.

The stress of said bare spots became very intense....never fear...there are still plenty of branches laying on the ground outside!!! So, you guessed it....my Uncles, who are literally like Frick and Frack at this point, retrieved the branches and started putting that tree back together like a puzzle. You know, a puzzle that requires hammer and nails! More whispering, more cursing...I can remember thinking...this is not good, this is not good at all!!! They mightaswell have just busted out the duct tape!

After the tree was all nailed back together and the lights were on and I was SWORN to secrecy, the decorating process started. That was always so much fun, beautiful BIG ornaments and tinsel! I was (so were my Uncles and Mother) sweating bullets the entire time worrying that my Grandmother would notice the branches that were NAILED back into the tree! Luckily the tree was such a puff ball that decorating went off without a hitch...shhheeew! I am sure that my eyes were as big as saucers through this whole thing. I have NO POKER FACE!!!

As the Christmas season progressed, that poor tree tried to stay green, but as you can imagine some "parts" of the tree just didn't seem to drink as much water as others! There were dead branches in the middle and top of the tree mixed in with the beautiful green ones that were drinking water to their little hearts contentment!! It was a rough site by the time New Years came. It was a site, truly a site...just not quite as picturesque!!!

Every time I would see my Grandmother coming in with a pitcher of water for the tree I had to leave the room. I was worried that I would crack under pressure....I think the most commonly used and heard phrase that year was "....that damn tree......" I wish we had video of the event, that would have been worth some money. We all kept the "secret" for YEARS....and I mean YEARS!!! It wasn't until I was an adult that we finally told my Grandmother what had happened to that tree. She was a little angry at first...I think because of the amount of effort she put into the "watering process"...but then she laughed right along with the rest of us.

That was the most memorable Tree story of my entire childhood. Now there are other memories in there....but that one is to never be topped!