` (the sad story of) Our First Christmas Tree Our first Christmas was the Christmas of a newly married couple of hippies who had been sweethearts for the previous three years in high school. I was not (am not) at all a very conventional sort, while my lovely wife has always been a very traditional homebody mom and wife. Now, I assumed, that first Christmas, that we would not be having a tree. I was not at all opposed to celebrating Christmas and I wasnt interested to save money, etc - for me it was a matter of sorting through in my own head the ludicrous scheme before me. Chop down a tree and bring it into your house to celebrate the birth of Jesus . . ? . . it just struck me as such an absurd procedure that I couldnt quite bring myself to participate in (I kind of need a logical and practical reason for things - everybody does or thats just the way it is just bounces right off of me). Now, we didnt have much; little money, no car, no decorations, minimal gifts for each other - but we did have three doggies, Dave, Ruth, and Larry . . . in our tiny single room apartment. So, Christmas Eve I begin to sense my dear wife does not seem happy . . . this became observably clear when she began to weep. She wanted a Christmas tree. Apparently she had just been going along with my silliness, not wanting to be difficult, but now, at about 11 pm Christmas Eve, my darling was crying for a Christmas tree. So out I ventured into the cold dark night to give my baby our first Christmas tree. Just a block and a half away from our miniature apartment was a gas station selling trees, so I headed that way. Of course, everyone already had their tree and all the tree sales folks were nestled all warm in their beds - the place was dark and deserted. There was one lonely tree left, lying on the ground in a puddle and I knew that was the one Pixie would love, so I grabbed it by the trunk and, and, and was stopped dead in my tracks - the puddle was frozen solid and was not giving-up this tree. I had to walk back home and get a table knife (the closest thing I had to any manner of tool) and return to hack my wifes tree loose. . . . and hack and hack and hack. I was on my knees, with a table knife, no gloves, digging away in the dark trying to free a ragged old Christmas tree from an ice puddle in the lot of an abandoned gas station . . . for nearly an hour. By the time I dragged that tree down the road and in the house I was spent - I got a cinder block from the side of the house, put in a corner of our combination living room/bedroom room and stuck the tree in it leaning against the wall. We stuck our couple gifts to each other, and to our puppies, under the tree and went to bed. What a giant treat when we woke-up in the morning. The great chunks of ice frozen to the back of the tree had melted overnight all over our gifts and the floor and Dave, Ruth, and Larry had tracked it all through the rest of the house - except, it wasnt chunks of ice, it was chunks of frozen mud that was now a great pool of gunky liquid mud under our first Christmas tree and all over our presents and all through our house and all over our dogs. Of course now, we love our first Christmas tree and our first and only Christmas mud puddle - its one of our great those were the days stories that remind us of who we are, where weve been, and how weve come through it all together. Merry Christmas! . . . heres a tiny peek at a Christmas in our home almost 25 years ago ~
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:29:02 +0000
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