It's a Blue Family tradition. Each year, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we head a few miles down the road to the Christmas Tree Farm. We've gone Christmas tree hunting at this charming little farm for 10 years now.
We either walk boldly into the vast landscape, handsaw at the ready to hunt the tree down, dragging it's lifeless -- yet still thirsty -- pine carcuss up to the barn. Or we wimp out and choose one already cut, displayed in the barn by the main house.
I'm not sure which trees to feel more sorry for -- the ones already hanging up in the barn or the ones out in the field.
Are the ones in the barn more popular? Special in some unknown way? The Christmas Tree Elite? Why do they deserve the special treatment of being presented so beautifully inside the barn, near the nice old lady who serves hot chocolate by the wood burning fireplace? It all seems so quaint and festive until you remember that these elite trees are all hanging from the ceiling and are usually sent spinning in circles time and time again by rotten little kids all jacked up on hot chocolate.
How do the trees still growing out in the field feel? Are their still-growing roots quaking beneath the frozen surface? Stuck, can't move, as the hunter families stand there, pulling and poking at them, not even thinking twice about saying, "This one's no good at all! Too big! Too skinny! Too lopsided! Uneven, too ugly, bad color, I hate it, can't stand it, won't buy it!"
Yeesh. After all of that abuse, you know most have to suffer from sort of of horticulture-related Stockholm Syndrome. Brainwashed to feel lucky -- like a chosen one when someone chops them off at the trunk.
"See! I'm the winner! Have fun out here, ya losers! I'm off to a nice, warm loving home!"
Suckers. They don't realize that this is the beginning of the end. Sure, at first you lovingly give your tree water, you decorate it to make sure it's a beautiful as can be, even brag about it to friends and family for a couple of days. But time marches on and who really cares that much? Dumb tree's as dry as a bone in 1 weeks' time.
This year we skipped the hunting part and went right into the barn. God forbid I even get any hot chocolate out of the deal. My hormonal teenager continues on a daily basis to ruin any family fantasy I've imagined in my head. Getting a Chrismas tree is now lame. As am I. Anyway.
Get it. Bag it. Go. That's our new Blue Family tradition.
As we were paying for the tree, the teenage girl took my money and asked if we would need a tree stand or bag to go along with it.
I replied, happily, "No thanks!" I'm so grateful now when a teenaged person is civil, it makes me perk right up. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.
And she returned cheerily, "Ok! Happy Holidays!"
I was all ready to pull a Wolcott. I even had a fist made, arm pulled back as far as possible to get a good heathen whack in, but then, shocked, stopped myself!
"She's one of us Mom," my son whispered from the back seat.
So she and I exchanged the secret liberal Christmas code.
((((((Wink, wink.)))))))
And we were on our way back home with that 8 foot sucker strapped to the top of the car.
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