The children were all nestled all snug in their sweaters (except for my oldest daughter who was off to a Band competition) in hopes that their old man soon would get his lazy butt out of bed. I was down to 2/3 of my normal resources for cheap manual labor, but it would have to do. The boxes came down pretty easily. I even found the bag that had been concealing my wife's present from last year. Shhh don't tell her where my hiding spot is.
I was dressed all in cotton from my head to my foot and my clothes all devoid of ashes and soot. I retrieved rope, a saw, and my gloves (I hate getting sap all over my hands). Almost half as fast as eagles my chitlins they came and I whistled and shouted and called them by name. Then we dashed away dashed away dashed away all. We climbed in the van and took the 1/4 mile trip up Miller hill to a small, but well-stocked Christmas tree farm, where all the trees are just $10.
I immediately found this tree upon stepping out of the van:
It looked perfect to me. Nice symmetry. Just the right height, no holes. I left my string on it to cast my vote.
I should have known it would not be that quick and easy. We had to make sure there wasn't a better tree out there, so I shouldered the saw again and dutifully followed the others in search of a more perfect specimen.
After just a few minutes we found this one, which got another vote and the search was on in earnest. Now that we'd seen two quality trees we had to get the absolute best tree possible. So I made sure this tree was flagged visibly and followed along again, fingering the blade of my saw.
Two more high quality trees showed up in rapid succession. Each getting one vote. Now we had four options. It was time to make a decision. We did another round to each of the trees, taking pictures so we would not forget what the last looked like when it came time to compare them.
Strategies for hanging ornaments and the star came into play. Each tree had to pass the olfactory test.
There was heated debate. My tree was number 2 and went down in the first round of debates, but received an unexpected 11th hour resurgence. Trees were inspected for defects, excessive dead needles. Oh no, my youngest tried to sneak in a last minute contender.
We shot that idea down with extreme prejudice.
Finally we had a winner.
So I grabbed the saw and laid down under the tree in the work pants that my wife so pointedly made fun of that morning. I got a good grip on the saw and began the Paul Bunyon routine. Meanwhile the kids took turns balancing on the fallen trunk of another Christmas tree. Thanks to my manly muscles I felled that monster in 30 seconds flat.
After recruiting a bit of child labor to get the tree back to the van and tied down we were on our way home.
I decided to tackle the house lights before the tree since we were not quite ready to move the tree into the house. As the dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly was not anything like my ascent to the house-top.
I tossed up extension cords, boxes and bags of lights, and a handful of extra clips. I spoke not a word but went straight to my work. I pulled at the lights and gave them a jerk. Within no time I was elbow deep in the spaghetti that the gremlins make out of all Christmas tree lights after we stow them away with great care. I am convinced that the same person that invented the guillotine and the rack invented those icicle lights. Not only do you have the long strand every set of lights has, but you have extra lengths from 4 - 12 inches long that manage to tangle themselves around everything in sight -- including themselves.
My only consolation was the smug knowledge that my unfairly defamed work pants came in amazingly handy in keeping my extra clips, leaving both hands free to struggle with the lights and my tongue free to offer encouraging French phrases towards them to cow them into submission.
I also had the satisfaction of throwing each empty box off the roof once I had finally rid them of their mess of lights. Something very satisfying about seeing your mortal enemies fly through the air to land ten feet below you.
I really did wish I had that Rose Suchak Ladder when I realized I had forgotten a box of the lights. Finally they were all in place, connected, and ready to fire up. And laying a finger aside of my nose and giving a nod I scratched that itch that had been bothering me while clambering down from the roof.
I flipped on the power and viola! they lights did not all turn on. I practiced speaking in tongues a little more as I discovered that these lights are designed with two different sizes of light bulbs. I would need to take a trip to the store and find some replacements. Now I know why people lay out their lights and plug them in before they hang them all along the house.
Oh well. On to the next project. Lights along the pathway. I stole some stakes from our pup tent and got the rope lights secured in much less time than the others had taken. By this time it was the tree's turn. I hacked off a few inches from the bottom of the tree to give it a clean cut for soaking up water. I grabbed a hammer and drove the spikes on the tree holder into the trunk, and carried the whole thing into the house.
After recruiting some help from my aforementioned child labor (one of which was now home from her competition) the tree was in place, straight, and filled with water. This was done in just the right way as to show my wife that it didn't belong in front of the window, but in the opposite corner of the room when she returned.
I left the tree and headed out to perform the last lawn mowing of the season so I could drain the mower of gas and prevent another carborator rebuild in the spring. It took a bit longer than I expected to drain it, so I finished the entire lawn and half of the field behind the house before it sputtered its last.
I settled in for a cold one (of the caffeinated kind), thinking my part was done. After my wife's revelation about the tree position I returned to the front room. A few moments later the front room was dismantled with the furniture stacked out of the way and we dragged the tree (full base of water and all) accross to its new resting place. A bit more maneuvering and the tree now faced the right direction.
After a trip to the store for more lights and replacement bulbs I was left with only two sections of icicles still not lit up outside, but enough lights to cover the tree. And the tree did look better in the other corner. We decided to hold off on the rest of the decorations.
All that was left to do at that point was to tease the cat with a bit of string leftover from tree marking.
Once the cat and I were both exhausted it was time to call it a day.
I slumped to my sofa with a wheezing whistle and away flew my energy like the down of a thistle. And I swear I heard as I drifted off to sleep "can you take out the recycling and the garbage, please?"
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