The Christmas season is kicked off. I’ve always liked Christmas immensely, and I taught our daughter to love it as well. I get to take all the credit here since my better half belongs to the ‘Bah, Humbug’ school of thought who interprets Christmas as celebrating a ridiculous religious tradition sprinkled with crass commercialism. Oh, yes, he’s a real Ho, Ho, Ho killer when he gets on a BH rant.
Our first brush this year with the 'Bah, Humbug' attitude came with our Christmas tree.
We have a flower seller whose booth is outside the local convenience
store at the end of our block. We buy
flowers from him sporadically all year long.
In fact, he made up the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I’ve ever
gotten for my birthday. Anyway, back to
the point…. The flower guy put out for sale a selection of Christmas trees
ranging from three feet high to about six feet tall.
I’ve said for the past month our grandson (AKA the Huckleberry) is going to have a tree at our house which is just his height, and that he can decorate with the unbreakable bedazzled felt ornaments I made. This is a tradition which we started with our daughter. Her first tree was three feet tall, and she could reach every branch including the top. Tiny trees may seem small to us adults, but to a toddler, they are huge! Each year, as she grew, the tree got taller.
When you don't have a car you either have to pay a delivery fee or carry the tree home yourself. It seemed a no-brainer to me to buy the tiny tree at the end of the block. It's an easy carry home. It even has a small sized tree stand. All was fine. The Huckleberry and his Grandad picked one out since they pass the trees on the walk home from school each day.
On purchase day, they discovered the price was $50. Bah, Humbug, they walked away without the tree. I was furious. This will be the only Christmas I will have to spend the entire season with a grandchild, and it’s not like we can’t afford the tree. The upshot: We have a three foot tall $50 tree in our living room decorated by The Huckleberry. It’s a cute as a bug, and worth every penny. He loves this tree and wants it lit the minute he arrives at our house from school.
Christmas Tree Saga Number Two: Our family tradition is to buy and decorate
our Christmas Tree immediately after Thanksgiving. Our son-in-law has learned to give the Sweetpea (our daughter's nickname) free rein in
trees since she and I love the decoration aspect of Christmas and the tree is
the centerpiece. My mother wrote the
‘family’ and my closest friends when she was barely one year old suggesting giving her a Christmas
ornament each year. Due to her efforts, the Sweetpea has a huge collection of fun ornaments. The Piano Man (son-in-law's nickname) now has his collection given
to him by me which we started in 2009, and The Huckleberry has his. At this point, there are so many a six to seven
foot tree will not display all the ornaments.
