I feel sorry for my husband. Very sorry for him. Until he
married me, he never once had a live Christmas tree. Never! Poor guy grew up with little artificial ones. And that was
in the 70s and 80s. Yes, you can all feel sorry for him.
I always had a live tree. I don’t where we got them when I
was really young. In Tennessee, we’d go to Mack and Elinor’s and cut one down.
Later we got them various places: tree farms, Boy Scouts, nurseries. But until
I left home in 2009, I never had a fake tree. That year, I put up my
grandfather’s little fake tree. That was quite sufficient since I was going
home for Christmas anyhow. 2010 was one of two years I didn’t have a tree where
I lived. Haley and I both were headed home for the holidays, so we didn’t
bother. The next year, though, Haley’s parents were coming to Texas so a tree
was required. We ventured up in to the attic where we found one of the two fake
trees stored up there as well as a box full of lights. I think most of the
lights were half-working, but we made do and strung it up with red and white
lights so you could plug in solely red, solely white or both. Haley had
ornaments, I had three or four I had never taken home to pack away with my
others and the tree was so nice we put it up again the next year. The following
year I was in Minnesota where I borrowed some lights and ribbon from camp to
decorate a window in my apartment. Since I blank out after about a half-hour of
decorating and decorated a couple of trees at camp, I had my fill and it was
enough.
The next year I was married and in Pittsburgh. Christmas
arrived and the discussion began: real or fake? That year I think Ed thought
real was such a novelty, he easily agreed to my side. The next year he took a
bit more convincing, but since it was Emry’s first Christmas he agreed to
another real tree. Last year, he took quite a bit of convincing and, to be
honest, I looked at fake trees. After all, his argument is quite true and hits
where I’m most vulnerable: in the long run a fake tree is more cost-effective.
In a matter of years, it pays for itself and saves tons of money. However, I
wasn’t quite ready and so we got another real tree.
This year our dilemma wasn’t so much real vs. fake as where
in the world we even had room to put a tree. Wherever we put it, it would have
to be small. We looked at fake trees, but we got stuck on the question of do we
purchase a small tree when, in the hopefully near future, we would like a place
where we could purchase the tree we really want. So, in essence, purchasing two
fake trees. I think he saw I couldn’t get over that and came home saying he saw
signs for a tree farm in Freedom where you could pick out your tree, they’d cut
it and off you’d go. So, on Thursday, we bundled up the kids, grabbed a blanket
and straps to put the tree on top of the Pilot and off we went.
Now, first of all, Ed does not read signs like I do. I read
anything and everything. Ed might read the speed limit. So when we got to the
sign pointing to the tree farm, he finally read what it said, shook his head
and said “Cut a tree? We’re not cutting any trees!” For a few minutes, I didn’t
say anything. We drove down the winding, somewhat dirt road to the farm in
order to turn around and come back. He said one or two more things about cutting
trees until I finally said, “What did you think a tree farm was? They grow the
trees so, of course, you cut them down.” He glanced at me and replied, “How
would I know that? I never had a real tree until I married you.”
Now I know Ed and I grew up in very different ways, but that
was the first time I realized how those childhoods were different in rather odd
ways. Like something as simple as a Christmas tree.
As I said in a previous post, some traditions just come to
be. This, apparently, is one of them. For next year, I’m sure we’ll have the
same discussion yet again…
