The website Geneabloggers celebrates the holiday season by posting daily blogging prompts to help genealogy bloggers record holiday memories. When I have time, I am going to try to participate. Today's prompt is "The Christmas Tree."
My family always bought a real tree. Every. Year. We lived in the suburbs so usually we would go out some Saturday shortly after Thanksgiving and drive to a tree farm in the boonies. I can't remember where we would go and I actually think it varied from year to year. It was usually pretty cold and sometimes there was already snow on the ground. We weren't picky about tree type - sometimes it was a fir and at other times it was a spruce - but we always got a big one. Not Chevy-Chase-Christmas-Vacation BIG, but still pretty big AND round. My dad usually had to saw off some of the top AND bottom so that it would vertically fit in our house.
So, we'd strap it to the roof of our station wagon (or later our big 'ole red conversion van) and bring it home. Then the real fun would begin. See, the tree stand we had was old - it was metal, rusty, and crooked even WITHOUT a tree in it! My dad would situate himself at the bottom under the tree and at least two of us would have to hold the tree by the trunk while he screwed in the trunk. It usually took several tries of screwing and unscrewing the pins in and out before the tree was straight. And sometimes we STILL couldn't get it straight, at which point my dad would get some small pieces of scrap wood and prop them under the leaning side of the tree.
My family always bought a real tree. Every. Year. We lived in the suburbs so usually we would go out some Saturday shortly after Thanksgiving and drive to a tree farm in the boonies. I can't remember where we would go and I actually think it varied from year to year. It was usually pretty cold and sometimes there was already snow on the ground. We weren't picky about tree type - sometimes it was a fir and at other times it was a spruce - but we always got a big one. Not Chevy-Chase-Christmas-Vacation BIG, but still pretty big AND round. My dad usually had to saw off some of the top AND bottom so that it would vertically fit in our house.
So, we'd strap it to the roof of our station wagon (or later our big 'ole red conversion van) and bring it home. Then the real fun would begin. See, the tree stand we had was old - it was metal, rusty, and crooked even WITHOUT a tree in it! My dad would situate himself at the bottom under the tree and at least two of us would have to hold the tree by the trunk while he screwed in the trunk. It usually took several tries of screwing and unscrewing the pins in and out before the tree was straight. And sometimes we STILL couldn't get it straight, at which point my dad would get some small pieces of scrap wood and prop them under the leaning side of the tree.
 Christmas 1989 |  Christmas 1989 |
Once the tree was "stable" in the stand, my parents would bring the decoration boxes out of the attic. First, the colorful strings of lights went on the tree (after my parents untangled them out of the box - usually not a small task!) Our favorites were always the bubble lights - the ones that started shooting up bubbles in the colored liquid after warming up. Then, the shiny garland went on the tree. Our garland was of different colors and varieties - some strands were so old that they were little more than strings with a few shiny tendrils left on them, and some of the strands were much more full. Then came the ornaments. Of course, this was always our favorite part as kids because this was where we could participate the most. Like the garland, we had a mish-mash of ornaments - some were antiques that my parents got from their parents, some were from craft shows, some were photos, some were personalized, some had been gifts, some we made at school, etc. It was always fun to pull them out of the boxes, unwrap them from the Kleenex tissues in which they were haphazardly stored, and remember the different times they represented. My dad would then get up on a chair and place the angel on top. Our angel was an antique and very fragile. She must have been made in the 30s or 40s - she had that Glinda-the-Good-Witch hairstyle. Usually, when we were done with ornaments and angel, my dad tried to coerce us to put some silvery tinsel on the tree as a finishing touch. That stuff got EVERYWHERE - what a mess it created! (You'll see on the photos above that there was NO tinsel on that tree - my mom must have won out that year!)
Bubble Lights!
Having a real tree in the house at Christmastime was pretty neat as a kid, and it made the house smell nice and piney. However, it was hell when it came to taking down the trimmings and getting the thing out to the curb for garbage pick-up. Even if you keep the stand full of water, after more than a month of being cut, the tree dries out, which leaves its needles extra sharp and prickley. Taking off the ornaments, garland, and lights literally hurt your hands and arms. Then, it usually took several of us to carry the thing to the door, at which point we usually would have to SHOVE it through. Oh, and during this whole process, dead pine needles fell ALL over the place - floor, furniture, toys, the dog's water bowl - whatever happened to be around. Our old Kirby vacuum cleaner was never able to pick them all up, which meant that we had to get down on our hands and knees and pick them up one by one. Tedious work, indeed.
After my husband and I bought our first home (we didn't even try to put a tree in our little apartment), we decided to go artificial. The fake ones look so authentic these days and they are SO much easier to set up and put away. Plus, they are much less expensive in the long term when compared with having to buy a cut tree every year. Our kids get just as much joy out of setting it up and decorating it as me and my siblings did with the real trees.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
After my husband and I bought our first home (we didn't even try to put a tree in our little apartment), we decided to go artificial. The fake ones look so authentic these days and they are SO much easier to set up and put away. Plus, they are much less expensive in the long term when compared with having to buy a cut tree every year. Our kids get just as much joy out of setting it up and decorating it as me and my siblings did with the real trees.
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
