It was 2002. Our family had an obvious aversion to buying Christmas trees.
It was almost like a repulsion to spending money on something we would throw away within the month.
And it was almost like there weren’t artificial trees accessible for a small fee that we could keep for 15 to 20 years.
My mom’s brother had a cedar tree on his property that he didn’t particularly enjoy looking at. So, Mom went out there to cut it down.
It’s hard to judge the size of a small tree in the wild. The tree was short compared to the nearby forest of fifty-year-old oaks reaching fifty feet into the air.
The tree was minute compared to the expansive blue sky above, which we have yet to determine the vastness of.
So, devoid of a tape measure, we cut the cedar down and hauled it home.
At this time, it is imperative to point out that the ceiling in our double-wide was vaulted in the middle — meaning it was lower where it connected to the outer walls and higher where it connected to the inner walls. (I know you know what a vaulted ceiling is, Joanna Gaines, Jr. I’m aiming for a higher word count, hun. Bear with me.)
And the year previous, we replaced the front door of our double-wide with double patio doors.
Had the single front door been there, the tree would’ve stayed outside. But since there were double doors, we had no issues getting the tree inside. The fact that it stretched from one side of the double door to the other was lost on us. We were blinded by the fact that we had a free real tree.
We dragged it over to the outer wall of our humble abode.
We stood it up.
The size of the tree was beginning to register within our collective brains.
We scooted it over to the other side of the room near the inner wall.
We stood it up.
Yeah, okay, the tree was massive. The top of the tree doubled over as it reached beyond the height of our ceiling.
Did we cut it? No. We decided the star would not be a part of the decor that year.
We were undeterred. We stabilized the behemoth and secured it with goodwill and undaunted Christmas spirit. We determined the tree would be just fine as it stood upright at an almost indiscernible 86-degree angle.
We decorated the tree with lights and every ornament in our possession.
An interesting fact is that all of our ornaments were more sensitive to pressure than we realized. In other words, they were breakable.
We finished decorating and sat around the living room on the various pieces of furniture, enjoying the sight and smell of our fresh, new eleven-foot tree stuffed beneath a ten-foot ceiling.
Moments later, the tree decided to lay down across our living room.
It happened so quickly. One second, it was up, and the next second, it was down.
It was a crescendo of a heavy tree hitting the floor, breaking ornaments, and plugs wrenched from the outlets.
After cleaning up the mess, we decided to cut it down a bit and redecorate. It’s something I’ll never forget.
The next year, we bought a six-foot artificial tree. It was thirteen years before we put another live tree in the house.
Ah, Christmas memories.
to all the parents inadvertently making memorable moments,
– Caleb
caneymountainblog.com 