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HOHOThump
I’m sure, by now, you’re tired of reading about my Christmas adventures over the years. Hmmm. Well, this column is about yet another one of those adventures. It happened when all of our children were still living at home. LOML and I were trying to keep the spirit of the holiday season alive for them. The problem, that particular year, was while the youngest was still a firm believer in the magic of Santa Claus, her brothers were old enough to realize who the real Santa Claus was—Mom and Dad. So, when the youngest was about six we sat the boys down and explained how it might be the last Christmas she would believe in Santa Claus and they needed to keep their mouths shut about it.
To get ready for the big day, LOML and I headed out to a local garden centre and picked out the biggest tree we could find and paid a bit extra to have it delivered to our side porch. And what a behemoth that year’s selection was. Ten feet of lush branches when it finally thawed and was settled into the stand. All of us were excited about decorating. The tree had arrived on a Friday evening and by Sunday it was firmly ensconced in the massive tree stand. We were ready to make it more beautiful. Armed with oodles of strings of lights, boxes of shiny tinsel, armloads of garland, copious quantities of candy canes and an untold number of baubles, away we went. Festive music was playing in the background. Cookies and apple cider were on the sideboard. And we sang, laughed and decorated. When the deed was done, we turned the overhead lights down, sat back and silently took in the spectacle. We all agreed, it was the most magnificent tree ever to grace our home. And then?
Well, and then the real magic began. Yep, there seemed to be magic in that tree. While Sunday dinner was being consumed we heard a groan, followed by a crinkly thump which shook the entire house. TREE DOWN! Youngest began to cry “Santa won’t be able to bring presents!” The older brothers smirked, but said nothing as we hefted the firry beast back into its home base, swept up the broken baubles and then set about getting dishes cleared away, lunches made for school the next day. We spent the rest of the evening assuring the littlest kiddo Christmas was going to happen and everything was going to be fine. Over the next two weeks, or so, the tree crashed to the floor at least once each day. Twice Big Green crashed to the floor in the middle of the night. We wired it to the wall. It crashed to the floor. We firmly affixed the tree stand to a large piece of plywood. It crashed to the floor. We weighed down the plywood with two cement blocks. It broke loose from the wall, jumped out of the stand, ignored the cement blocks and crashed to the floor. In spite of our engineering, our swearing, our ingenuity and the all of the tears, Big Green found a way to break loose. The thud of the tree hitting the floor and the tinkle of ornaments breaking became the soundtrack of that December The youngest kiddo was losing sleep over the thought of being bypassed by St. Nick. One evening after the kids had gone to bed LOML and I removed all of the baubles, all of the lights, almost all of the tinsel and the garland. We dismantled the restraints and dragged it outside. With our last bit of holiday energy we jammed Big Green into a massive snow drift. We remembered our “bottle brush” artificial tree from bygone days and it was hauled out of the storage room and pressed into service. It was so small, it needed less than half the decorations and only one string of lights. The garland and tinsel were the key to covering the gaps. Youngest barely noticed the switcheroo. And, thank goodness Santa arrived at the appointed time and left a little more than the usual pile of gifts. And, what about the magical Big Green?
Glad you asked, because this is where the magic of Christmas comes in. That ten-foot tree stood upright in the snowdrift by our little outdoor rink all the way into March. The Cardinals, the Juncos and the Chickadees loved their new home. And, the day it did it final dive it was as green as the day we purchased it. Obviously, it was never meant to be an “indoor tree”.
Thirty-plus years later, we still talk, and laugh, about Big Green. HoHoThump!
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