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Ha Ha Ha Holidays
Christmas is picture-perfect, I wonder just how much tinsel they snorted over the holidays. The perfect holiday celebration happens on the pages of magazines and in Hallmark made-for-television movies. I can honestly say it has never happened at our house. Nor did it ever happen when I was a kid. I’m not saying my parents didn’t try to make Christmas picture-perfect, they did try. But with seven kids and a young auntie living under their roof, there were too many variables. And goodness knows, LOML and I tried to capture the essence of magazine-spread perfection with our big, crazy family. We tried themes. We tried colour coordinated decorations. We tried shopping early. And we took meal preparations to a new high. What I am saying is ordinary people just don’t manage to pull off a dream Christmas. Something always happens to put a crook in the candy cane.
Our biggest holiday laugh happened about 25 years ago. We were so prepared that year. We were on top of our game. It was going to be the Christmas to beat all others. Two weeks before the big day, LOML and I chose the most perfect Christmas tree at a local greenhouse. The tree was, according to the tag, between 7-1/2 and 9 feet tall. Obviously, we couldn’t bring it home in the family Rolls-can-hardly and asked to have it delivered. We suggested that it should be left on the lawn next to our side porch. Two days later, while our family was eating dinner, we heard (and felt) a tremendous thud. It was either a huge fender-bender at the corner or the side porch had collapsed. The plates and glasses in the cupboards tinkled and clunked. As it turned out, the Tree had arrived. Not only had it arrived, the driver decided to put it on the side porch. It was a behemoth. It took up all of the side porch and spilled down the steps onto the lawn. LOML and I couldn’t believe we’d ordered such a massive beast. We were so sure a mistake had been made, we called to ask if “Big Lonely Doug” might have made a wrong turn at Main Street. We were told trees often looked a lot smaller out-of-doors, on a tree lot. Hmmm, we supposed that could have been the case. After moving most of the furniture out of “the tree room”, LOML and I spent the next halfhour trying to squeeze the Tree through the door. With the help of our two teenaged sons we managed to heave, shove and haul the monster into the dining room. After two feet of sappy trunk was removed, the stand was affixed, the Tree was set upright. And then?
Well, and then over the next week, the Tree hit the hardwood almost every hour on the hour. Each time scaring the truffles out of all of us. It was clear to see this tree had a mind of its own. We bolted the stand to a six-by-six sheet of plywood and still the Tree refused to stay in place. Two cement blocks were brought in and placed on the plywood, but we still had a jumper. With much trepidation, we decorated the Tree. The Tree didn’t like the decorations anymore than it liked being in our house. It was a lot like having a newborn at home, LOML and I were up several times every night to right the Tree. Finally, we’d had enough. The kids protested, and shed a few tears, as we removed all of the decorations, hauled the Tree out to the back yard and rammed it into a huge snow drift. An ancient artificial tree was then pulled out of storage and pressed into service. It looked like a Christmas tree except it was about five feet tall and may have had thirty branches. Scrawny, miserable, musty branches. And then?
And then Christmas happened, as it’s been known to do. And, the Tree? Well, the Tree stood proudly, upright, in the dang snow drift until the end of March. We still laugh about the Christmas we learned, “Don’t let the greenery get your tinsel in a tangle”.
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