It's A Tree-mendous Holiday

We have finally gotten all the trees up in the house. Mandy and I had our first date during the week of Christmas 1997 and were later married in December of 2001, so the holidays have always held a special place in our hearts. In total we have about five trees we decorate each year; three full size and two smaller trees in each of the boy's rooms. Each tree has its own personality. There's the pre-lit tree that illuminates an entire city block and shines like a lighthouse beaconing lost sailors back home. We have an all silver tree with colored lights and various red balls hanging about. This year we added a top hat which seems to have been the perfect touch. Then last but certainly not least the traditional green Christmas tree. This one is always the last to go up.

What makes the green tree so special are the ornaments you find on it. We collect ornaments like some people collect old Coke signs or rare novels. There are ornaments representing new babies, first holidays; reindeer made of handprints and globes filled with pictures of the children. This tree while special in so many ways is also a source of tremendous angst. Aside from the constant fear that the cats will see it as a giant play thing constructed purely for their amusement, the thought of two clumsy careless curious boys grabbing, pulling, and manhandling our precious keepsakes is enough to send even the most serene of individuals running for the medicine cabinet in search of anything to assist in the calming of nerves.

When it comes to decorating a Christmas tree life does not imitate art. Forget all about Mommy, Daddy, little Susie, and Timmy laughing and singing carols around the tree. Decorating with two little boys in a house with a couple of playful cats is more akin to being a museum security guard in charge of a one of a kind work of art. Only the most gentle of touch can handle the object and placement is everything. The higher you move up the tree the more precious the ornament. Give the cats a little something less valuable to occupy their time on the bottom branches, make sure everything is practically bolted into the tree to protect against the occasional bump, and maybe just maybe the treasures will last another year with the help of some super glue and prayer. 

Growing up we had real live trees. I say real live trees because there is a clear distinction between the live trees typical families purchase from Lowes or some random parking lot and the real live trees we had growing up with The Angry Man. The trees you normally find at a retail store were more than likely planted neatly in a row with several of their Christmas tree brethren on a tree farm where they were cared for, groomed, and harvested by a tree farmer trying to earn a buck for his family. Our real live trees were stolen from some random field in the backwoods of Lauderdale County, Alabama. 

I remember it like it was yesterday, The Angry Man deciding the weather was perfect for our holiday felony. Too nice a day and Farmer Brown would be on the watch. Too poor a day and you risk catching pneumonia. In hindsight I suppose it makes since, after all the last thing you expect to see in a snow storm is someone cutting down a pine tree in your background. We would all load up in the cab of that old red pickup truck, Cousin Ralph, The Angry Man, my brother Brock, and myself. Brock only about six and myself a very young twelve, crammed between these two fully grown men. One of us straddling the gear shift lever praying there wouldn't be a need to suddenly shift into four wheel drive.

I don't know how long we drove other than it felt like hours. Like a kidnapping victim blindfolded and quizzed later about how they ended up miles outside of town standing next to a field of pine trees, all I could tell you was it was cold and desolate.  Now like any good thief will tell you, the key to any crime is patience and so after being in that truck together for goodness knows how long the last thing we were gonna do us just jump out and start hacking away at the first tree we came too. No the first step to a good Christmas tree robbery is to sit and observe. Watch to see how busy the road your on is. Count the number of cars coming by and listen for any signs of life. People take trespassing pretty serious and behind every sign warning you to stay away is a twelve gauge shotgun itching to be put to good use. So the four of us would sit....

After a good twenty or thirty minutes of scoping out the scene we would start out on our journey to the middle of the wooded area. That's where the good trees were; in the middle where the snow was deep and the view of the road was nonexistent. My absolute favorite memory of our adventures in Christmas tree thievery came one year after several minutes of tromping through the knee deep snow and finally finding the perfect tree for our living-room. Let the chopping of the tree begin! Not too loud to draw attention of Farmer Brown who you just knew was lurking out there in the distance with his ear to the ground. 

As any experienced logger will tell ya, predicting where a chopped tree will fall is not an exact science. Just when you think they will fall left, they'll go right; which is exactly what six yr old Brock found out that winter. Arms stretched out as if he was about to give a close relative a giant bear hug. Dressed in his warmest blue puffy coat with black trim like the Alaskans wear in the dead of winter; navy blue taboggan pulled tight over his ears, my little brother disappeared behind an avalanche of green branches. Luckily for him the three feet of snow took the brunt of the force of the tree, but still not many people can say they were once buried alive by an illegally obtained Christmas tree in the backwoods of Alabama. 

Boy I sure love Christmas!!!