The Christmas Tree ...

I love Christmas trees, they are one of my favorite parts of Christmas decorations. The whole story is that I much prefer a real Christmas tree. I like the smell, the less than perfect shape and especially the hunt to find the one you really want. As soon as our kids were old enough to have an opinion about it, they helped me pick out the tree. It was our tradition that the kids and I would go out to find the right tree, my wife would stay home and make sure all of the decorations were ready and then we came home with the "perfect" tree and would decorate it together. The kids all had a pile of their own decorations they would put on the tree, we had some other family ornaments and I was responsible for the lights. We always had Christmas carols playing while we decorated the tree, there was always some arguing about the ownership of certain ornaments and after the kids went to bed my wife would even out the decorations on the tree. After we finished decorating the tree, we would all go outside and look at the tree through the front window, then we eat hot dogs and marshmallows. The food part always worked better when we had a fireplace, we would roast the hot dogs and the marshmallows.

The stories that came from those special nights nearly always revolve around the fate of the tree. We seemed to have a wonderful ability to find a tree that was perfectly straight, well rounded and full without holes. Then during the transport of the tree home something magical happened. When I would put it in the tree stand it was no longer straight, not so round and there were often some huge holes. I would have to weigh the tree stand to keep the tree upright, we would have to mover the tree around to hide the holes and more than once I had to tie the tree to something else to keep it from falling over. In fact one year our tree fell over 3 times, the last one after it was completely decorated.

Those were great memories. My kids are all out of the house and have their own places, they get their own trees and are building their own traditions. Now the wife and I go pick out the tree together, there is little arguing and it goes a lot faster. I loved those tree picking and decorating nights, but I still have the memories and now I listen as my kids and grandkids begin telling their own stories.

By the way our tree looks really good this year. But I don't know if it will make it through the whole season, needles are already falling. Some traditions live on.