hauling a tree...

... tied to a luggage rack on top of a SUV, traveling from the lot where the fir was purchased.That is what the anonymous family was doing over the weekend. Going home to take it inside and drag down boxes of trim to decorate for the season.  I saw a family yesterday with a tree securely tied to the top of their vehicle, heading home to set up and cover with festive seasonal trim.

That won't be me putting up a tree, or stringing lights and garlands all over the house. I gave up on decorating some years ago, and have not put up the first thread, light, seasonal fluff in my house. Gave it all away, either to family members or just donated when I decided I was done with putting time and effort into getting stuff down, and spreading it all over the house only to go back and find it in several weeks and re-box to store for eleven months.

But when I see people driving home with their purchase, and putting up trees, I will always think of the last time my brother and I were instructed to get a tree. Our mom sent us out to find one to bring home and decorate. Many years before there were Christmas Tree lots that popped up on every corner on the day after Thanksgiving. None available in the little town where we lived: why would you go and pay for a tree when the woods were full of them? Does not matter that the ones growing wild, volunteer red cedars that were nearly as common as pine trees were so scratchy and prickly they would eat you up while you where cutting it down. Then loading it in the back of the pickup truck, and dragging it in the house to put in the tree stand. Itchy with every single ornament and string of lights added for holiday cheer.

We found what we thought was the perfect one, nice and bushy, just the right height. Stopped and got out of the truck with the hand saw to go and cut it down, just across a ditch, where it had been growing up through a wire fence. Never noticing that on the other side of the fence was an orchard of pecan trees. Never noticing the man who owned the property with the orchard was watching us while we were cutting and loading the tree.

As we started to leave, heading down the dirt road with our tree, the man who owned the property came barreling up in a cloud of dust, demanding to know who we were and what we were doing. We was terrified. Fully expecting to be using our one phone call from the jail to be calling Dad to ask him to come and bail us out for Christmas.

The farmer was persuaded we were only interested in that mean, scratchy red cedar, to take  home and decorate. We had no desire to steal his pecans, so he let us take the tree and go. Pretty much everyone in the county knew my Dad, so it was only a matter of time before he heard the story. We laughed about it for years, but at the time we were convinced we would spend the holidays eating gruel and sleeping on the hard cold concrete floor on the county lockup.