Every year the process of getting and decorating our Christmas tree turns into some crazy situations. The first year did not start us off on the right track thanks to my overactive imagination. Although I am far from warm and fuzzy, I had allowed my mind to drifts off into a Cleaver-ish scenario of silver bells and holly, mistletoe and magic. Rocky would rush home, sharing my excitement over buying our first married tree. We would examine every tree on the Home Depot lot until we found the perfect one (because Home Depot is the picture of romance). Once home, my adoring husband would turn on Christmas carols and start a fire while I poured our glasses of wine. We would then enjoy an evening of stringing lights and adorning our perfect tree, commenting on how wonderful our first married Christmas was turning out.
I have no idea where this image came from. I blame too many Fa la la la Lifetime movies and my evening was far from a dream. My husband did rush home, but not in the holiday spirit...in the fantasy football spirit. The Jets were playing the Bills. As he plopped down on the sofa I watched my daydream do a tale spin into the trash can. After I stormed off into the laundry room to furiously sort clothes he appeared in the doorway, having had his memory jogged by my little tantrum and we headed off to Home Depot. Actually getting the tree went pretty smooth and I had renewed hope for the evening. Once home I began unpacking boxes and boxes of lights and ornaments and stockings and trim, beginning to feel like my holiday fantasy might have dragged it's smoking carcass from the trash in my very own Christmas miracle.
Wrong again. He paused the football game long enough to help me string lights and before I could even plug them in, he was back on the sofa with the remote, glued to the game. I could see where this was going so I drop kicked my Christmas miracle back into the garbage and begin throwing all the decorations, which I have just unpacked, back into the boxes. Now, it's important to mention that at this point I knew I was being irrational and overreacting, but I didn't care. Furious, I stomp out of the room yelling, "I am not decorating our first married tree BY MYSELF! I guess we will just have lights this year. I would hate for our FIRST CHRISTMAS to get in the way of watching the FOOTBALL GAME!" I eventually calmed down and after convincing my husband he did not marry a crackpot, I got a happy ending to this holiday drama. The next evening Rocky came home and pulled out the decorations. He then poured two large glasses of wine, handed me one, and then put on Christmas carols. By the end of the evening we have a beautiful tree, a happy buzz, and a less-than-perfect but wonderful memory.
Our second Christmas together was comical. Rocky, being the smart guy that he is, decided to avoid any holiday drama. He coordinated with me ahead of time and we planned to get our tree on a non-football night. We got the tree and made it home where I poured wine while Rocky started a fire. It was quickly turning into my Lifetime Movie and I was secretly pleased. While in the office dragging the decorations out of the closet, we were interrupted by the ear-piercing sound of the smoke alarm. We raced into the living room and discovered smoke billowing out of the fire place. The dog was frantic as I hacked and coughed my way through the house opening windows and doors while Rocky tried to figure out how to extinguish the fire. We learned a little lesson about chimney sweeps that Christmas, but still managed to get everything decorated.
The third time was bound to be a charm. We planned to get the tree early Sunday morning, agreed that we would wait until later in the evening to decorate so that Rocky could watch the football game, and we decided to fore go a fire. Sunday morning we loaded up and headed out to get the tree, stopping at our favorite kolache shop on the way. We quickly found the perfect tree, paid for it, and carried it to the car where we we discovered that this tree (like me) seems to be fatter than in previous years because it would not fit in the trunk. No problem. We just let it stick out and drove home with the trunk open. On the way home I realized we didn't have them cut the bottom off the trunk and I informed Rocky he would have to trim it when we got home so the tree would be able to absorb water and live longer. He reminded me that we only have a hand saw, which seemed like a reasonable tool to me, but he felt differently and tried to convince me the trees had been cut recently and it didn't need a trim. I pouted the remainder of the trip home, convinced our tree would die within the week. Hormones.
We finally made it home and started to unload the tree when I noticed a tag on the bottom branch. "Grown in Oregon!" I read. "How recently could they have been cut if they were grown in OREGON?!" At this point, my poor husband sees the crazy coming out and just silently continues to work at getting the tree out of the trunk. He carried it to the backyard and then went to the shed to retrieve the hand saw. About this time I am starting to see crazy myself and feel bad, but I really wanted the base cut so I offered to help hold the tree in a peace making effort. The most obvious way seemed to be to straddle it while he cut so I climbed on. He put all his effort into sawing the biggest trunk I have ever seen on a Christmas tree and I leaned over to watch and offer encouragement (I'm sure he loved that). About halfway through the trunk, the saw got stuck. He pulled and pulled and I'm watching closely to see what happens when suddenly the saw came out and nailed me right between the eyes. I see stars. We both sat stunned for a minute. He felt bad, but I'm pretty sure he was thinking that I deserved it just a little... I was kind of thinking the same thing. I recovered and we (he) finished cutting the trunk off and we got the tree inside where it now consumes a gallon of water a day. All the other decorations went up without a problem and we are even going to attempt to put lights up outside on the tree in the front yard. We kept that piece of tree trunk and made an ornament out of it for the tree. The only problem now is that the dog keeps pulling the tree skirt off and using it to bury her bones in the house.
Our lovely tree and all our decor... don't mind the referee on the TV!
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