Hey, y'all -
Some concessions have been made in light of your dad's current absence. That's a lofty way of saying that with your dad gone, I am holding things together with a very thin string.
No way was I going to tromp through the woods with you people, looking for the perfect tree, only to bring it down with my trusty hatchet and drag it back to the car. What I WAS willing to do was stop by the Lions Club tree sale over at the Fairgrounds and let y'all pick a tree from the $15 discount row. They had some big, stately, impressive trees there, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $80 to watch something die in my living room.
True to form, y'all picked the ugliest tree in the building. The sweet volunteer asked if he could shape it for us with his chainsaw, but Hagen doesn't do loud noises. Then he asked if he could tie it up for us, and I said, "Naw, I'm just going to throw it in the passenger seat." He laughed like I was being SO FUNNY, and then he got to watch me do it.
Shut up and get in the car, tree:
I threw the tree in the living room, and climbed up our completely unstable ladder to the attic to look for the tree stand. I told Laney, "Stand by your phone and if you hear a big crash, dial 9-1-1." This is the kind of thing you have to think about when you don't have another adult in the house.
Didn't take me long to discover that the trunk of the tree was so tiny, our tree stand wasn't going to be able to hold it up, even on its tightest setting. Honest to Betsy, if I had enough rocks to weigh it down, I would have put the scrawny thing in a damn vase. Instead, I built a wall of splints around the trunk and duct-taped the whole thing together. Looks like a picture on a "You might be a redneck..." slideshow, but works great.
You two got busy decorating the tree. Our friend Tyler is famous for his flawless holiday decorating, where each light and ornament must be just-so, and a lifestyle magazine could drop by at any time and shoot a great layout of his decor. He barely lets Brian participate. So I enjoy texting Tyler pictures of our decorating process with messages like, "Step 1: Pick the ugliest tree on the lot. Step 2: Let small children throw random crap at it until they get bored and walk away. Isn't that how YOU do it?" Tyler texted back: "OMG. I would have a seizure."
Sometimes, we'll end up with three ornaments on the same branch because, as Hagen explains, 'They're all friends and they need to hang out together."
In the end, our tree looks like our trees always do...as if someone had too much egg nog and dragged a bush through the holiday section of Walmart where some stuff got stuck to it.
O Christmas tree!, Oh Christmas tree!
Thou art a metaphor for my life.
Love,
Mom
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