The tradition of the family Christmas tree.
The tradition started about 50 years ago, before that who
knows and better yet who cares. Those were the days, when things were simple.6A
was remembering when we waited all year
for that final week before Christmas, to
watch all of the Christmas shows: Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Mr. Magoo
Christmas, Frosty the snow man, Rudolf the red nose reindeer, The Grinch, It’s
a wonderful Life, white Christmas and of course National Lampoons Christmas
vacation! Today you have 25 days of
Christmas the hallmark channel, and others playing the same movies over and over,
and not one of them will bring the little tear to your eye like Clark standing
in front of his house at the end of the all time classic. To continue every
radio station now plays Christmas music starting just after Halloween 24/7, when
back in the day, you listened to vinyl on the old Hi-Fi. Well this has nothing
to do with trees so I will bet back on topic. Imagine the concept of putting up your tree on
Christmas Eve! For the first few years of (CT) Christmas Trees, we (6) would
spend all day helping mother clean the house, 6’s first job was to wax all of
the hard wood floors, and when he got a little older he was able to clean the
majestic chandler that hung over the dining room table (oh the joys of growing
up) . Late afternoon finally arrived, and father returned home from work and
their annual Christmas Party. He and 1 and 2 would go out to the local tree
selling place, actually I have no idea where they went, but they always came
back with a tree. It must have been close, because I can remember years where
the tree that they choose was not the perfect tree for our house and they had
to go back and try again. One year really stands out in my memory, because we
had two trees. As the story goes, father and his gang returned home, put the
tree up, and father gave it a nice coat of white snow, oh it was a beautiful
sight, but the next thing 6 knew, as tradition foretold, they went and got a
new tree and this one was just a green pine tree. As 6 got a little older the
tradition changed, we got up early the Saturday morning before Christmas, and
load-up the light blue station wagon, and headed out to the tree farm to cut
our own tree. Now it was 5,6,7,&8’s turn to choose a tree. Man we really
got some Fine looking trees. We walked for miles out in the snow, to choose the
perfect tree, loaded her up on top of the wagon, and headed to Denny’s for some
breakfast. As a side note, it was about this time in my life where I was
introduced to my first artificial CT. It was over there on Bossert Street, they
had an all silver tree that had a light that shined different colors on the
tree, it was truly magical! (Hey number 3, I sure hope that you did into dump
that gem in the trash! That is a quality item, and would look real good in the
family room at our Chrithmas party). It was about this time where the tradition
changed and we decorated the tree prior to Christmas eve. As time progressed
and 6 moved to the gateway city, and had a family of his own. 6 and 6A loaded
up the tiny children (61,62,63), into truckster #1 and headed off to the tree
farm, in Chuck Berry’s home town. It was like we could never find a tree that
was close to the parking lot, we would once again walk for miles look at 100’s
of trees before we settled on the perfect tree. We would cut it down, and then
drag the CT over snow mud and ice and by the time we made it back to the car,
it looked like Charlie Browns CT. We moved back east and then broke down and
got an artificial tree, all the fun was gone, but it sure made life a little
easier, and a lot less festive. Yes the tree is a wonderful thing, but it still
comes from nature, so there is no perfect tree. They are bald, crooked, messy,
hard and heavy. It takes you hours to get them in the tree stand, you are never
warm, you get pine needles all over the house, and you put marks on the walls
and ceiling, you are forever putting water in them, and worst of all they fall
down and you start the process all over again. Even if you get an artificial
tree they still fall down out of you crawl space and onto your car. In the end
it is all worth it, for on Christmas morning, when the lights are on, and the
gifts are under the tree, can you think of any thing better.
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