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Sunday, December 07, 2008

The Christmas Tree Exchange

The Big Giraffe only began to celebrate Christmas when we began dating. He's only had a Christmas tree since we've been married. Since this is our eighth Christmas as a married couple, you can do the math, right?

In our older son's (OS) preschool newsletter, there was a blurb that a local church was having a Santa and cookie event. We took the boys and they loved it. Let's just say that Santa definitely earned his cookies this year. He had the kids looking out the window for the reindeer he said were on the church's roof. This church was also selling Christmas trees in the parking lot as a fundraiser. We didn't have the cash on us yesterday, but we promised the boys we could come back today and get a tree. OS was quick to remind us of our promise first thing this morning.

Although today is only Dec. 7th and we have a tendency to wait until the last minute to get a tree (my friend Balex Melliot got a crazy cheap and gigantic tree one year on Christmas Eve), we set off to pick out our 2008 tree. OS immediately fell in love with on tree. I do have a vague recollection of the Big Giraffe saying that he thought the tree was too large. However, it was only a couple inches taller than he is, and he's 5'7". We paid for the eighth Christmas tree in the Big Giraffe's life and loaded it up. Immediately I had visions of a happy tree trimming. Why had we always waited so long to put up our tree? This wasn't stressful at all?

In fact the more I reflected on it, the more I realized that the closer to the beginning of December that we put up our tree, the less stressed out I get about it because we're not trying to cram it into an already filled holiday schedule. Sure, the longer we have pine needles on the floor more annoying I find it, but compared to all the needles we had upon entry to our house the year that we Balex Melliot got the tree on Christmas Eve since it was so old, it really wasn't bad.

We brought the tree into our house. The boys were eager with anticipation. The Big Giraffe picked up the tree and I tried to gently guide the trunk into the Christmas tree holder. It didn't fit. I tried to shove the tree into the trunk. No dice. I even tried to shove the holder onto the Christmas tree. Nothing was working. I was determined to remain calm and zen-like. Let's just say others, one other actually, in the house was losing it. Particularly when I informed him that I thought we needed to saw a little more of the tree off. I thought perhaps the knots were keeping it from fitting.

The Big Giraffe grudgingly dragged a hand saw up from the basement and laboriously sawed away while the two boys looked on with delight and I tried unsuccessfully to keep from laughing. Then I pointed out that we needed to saw off some branches from the bottom of the tree. The Big Giraffe gruffly informed me that he already knew that. For some reason I don't think he appreciated my rendition of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch". We tried getting the tree into the tree holder once again. It still didn't fit. Even worse, while throwing the thing around, we dragged it against the ceiling, leaving what looked to the parents of a potty-training child like tire tracks.

I came up with what I thought was a plausible solution: exchange the tree. The Big Giraffe looked even more annoyed particularly when I pointed out he really should go right then because otherwise the volunteers would have changed over. After all, the only thing weirder than seeing someone you helped before come back to exchange a Christmas tree is seeing someone whom you've never seen before claiming that they bought the Christmas tree hours earlier and now need to exchange it. In fact thinking back on all my years of Christmas celebrations, not only had I never exchanged a Christmas tree, but I don't know anyone who ever did. But this was for a church fundraiser and the people there seemed incredibly nice and filled with Christmas spirit...The Big Giraffe looked less filled with Christmas spirit.

One of the Big Giraffe's arguments against returning the tree was that he had cut the original twine taking the tree down and thus had no where to secure the tree to return it. Not only did I remember that we had a ball of twine in the house, but I actually found it so that we could tie the tree back onto the car. At this point I wasn't even trying to hide my laughter.

The Big Giraffe returned a short while later (after I did the reasonable thing and shared the story by phone with a friend laughing so hard I could barely speak) with his ninth Christmas tree. He was quick to point out both that he had brought the tree holder with him to be sure that this tree would fit and that if we had listened to him before we would have gotten this new tree in the first place. I pointed out it was basically the same height, and when he said the first tree was too big, he hadn't mentioned the width of the tree. He argued that he had not been specific about what constituted too big. I still couldn't stop laughing. I briefly wondered if there are stats on the number of divorces triggered by conflicts over a Christmas tree.

Fortunately, all is well that ends well. We have a lovely decorated tree. We worked together to scrub the sap off the ceiling. Many years from now both the Big Giraffe and I will both be able to look back at this Christmas tree and laugh. Hmmm...the Big Giraffe just asked me if he's going to be really mad at my blog post. Now I'm wondering again about those stats...

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: You should figure out the maximum Christmas tree height and width that will fit in your home before exchanging it.

Labels: Holidays, Humor (at least Attempted)

posted by Alex Elliot @ 7:10 PM 6 comments

6 Comments:

At 12/08/2008 9:15 AM, Heather said…

Tee hee!
At 12/08/2008 4:00 PM, Kami said…

"You're a mean one Mr. Grinch"

BWAHAHAHAHAA!!!

and the stats on divorce...too funny!
At 12/08/2008 6:03 PM, Whirlwind said…

LMAO over here.

I've never heard of a tree being too big for the stand before! In fact its something I never even thought of!
At 12/08/2008 9:28 PM, Kate said…

Oh man, that happened to us one year! I'm so glad we have a fake one now even though it might be pretty lame.
At 12/09/2008 5:56 PM, skiplovey said…

Wow. I think my husband would have dropped the tree off at the side of the road and then would have been it.
At least it ended well and what a funny story you have now.
At 12/16/2008 6:46 AM, Goofball said…

hmm I should go back to your facebook pictures as I'm totally confused about the "tree holder" concept? are you trying to fit the trunck in some kind of frame?

We always plant our tree in a huge bucket of earth. Preferably we bought a tree with roots (to plant it in the backgarden and attempt reuse for a couple of years) (real living trees don't loose the needles as easily if you don't forget to water them :) ). Unfortunately nowedays you can hardly find any Christmas trees with roots anymore in Belgium. What a shame.

since I hate the idea of a dying tree in the room (that's basically what a tree without roots is doing), we have already for 3 years an artificial tree now. I love it. It's a bit insane to be matching branches in a trunck with color codes, but once decorated it looks really good. No needles on the floor ever!

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Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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