i announced sometime ago to my clan, seeings as we were going home for the holidays like they do in the movies, i would not be turning Mossy Shed into a gleeful scene this year. Thanksgiving rolled around and i could not help but feel this was a tad bah humbug-ish, especially when out and about spying all the lovely twinkly gleeful and joyful goodness abounding from homes and stores.
thus i announced on the sunday after Thanksgiving, i had changed my mind and perhaps a smidgen of a sprinkling of a gleeful joyfulness around the shed would be in order. and so my thoughts turned to a tree, oh the tree... i must confess since living stateside i have never found a little christmas tree to my true gleeful heart's content. around this way they do a rather odd thing and trim the trees so they are cone shaped. to me this is madness of the utmost joyful kind, for surely tis all the sticky out odd branches which allow for maximum dingle dangleness. and so if you were to ask any of my clan would they like to go to the tree farm to pick out a tree, they would cry "yippee, pick me pick me, i will come" and if you were to follow it with a "yes, that is great and your mother is coming too" suddenly they would all be terribly busy and can't quite make the time. for no tree on the tree farm has ever stolen my christmas tree heart. we will traipse for miles, each clan member trying to sell me the merits of their chosen tree on the lot but alas, they are too big, too wide, too cone like, too perfect, too 'not like the trees from back home' and so forth
and so, sunday afternoon a-tree-hunting i would go, but not before my man had suggested he had something in the yard which might do just the job. where upon he appeared with a broken fir tree branch which had come down in the storm a few weeks back. he was rather chuffed with himself and said he thought it might come in handy so he had kept it safe. i noted as he stood there holding his branch that it came up from the ground and then bent back double so the tip of the branch was almost back down at the ground again (a rainbow of a branch if you will). i pondered wondering how to break his gleeful hopes. as i paused to ponder he took this as a good sign and proceeded to point out it had real fir cones on it and also, how marvelous was the bent over branch for creating a cascade of ornaments down one side. after which i trod all over his old branch gleeful dreams and said "nope, it just won't do, its just not quite right, away to the tree farm we must go". he said he couldn't come, he was terribly busy and so was Our #3 but fortunately for me, Our #4 every year thinks he will find the perfectly perfect tree that his mother will embrace in a joyful hug.
before the tree farm, (armed with our saw and heavy duty mitts, like true professionals), we noted the garden center had an abundance of cut trees, and so i thought it a jolly good idea to check them out first and so we did. after a once around i was a little saddened to see the same old tall cone shaped offerings. "what i really want" i said turning to my lad, "is the top few feet off a really tall tree, that way it will be spindly and rather normal looking" and then at that moment, he spied the forsaken little trees, we gasped, thee gasp... did we dare to dream, was it truly possible we had stumbled across the ones most pass by, the ones that perhaps did not grow to their full potential and thus, left to their own 'branches sticking out' devices, to grow.
oh joy of joy, there my little 'where have you been all my joyful tree searching life' christmas tree stood, not more than 3 and a half feet tall, rather dumpy at the bottom, perfectly 'left alone' and with a jolly reasonable price tag of $22. we snapped him up, (broken branch and all) and we noted no one offered to 'net our little tree', nor carry it to the car, nor tie it upon the roof. we noted a bemused look upon the helper elves as we carried our jolly friend to the car, however we both knew what they could never know, that after 13 years of searching, we had at last found the most perfectly perfect 'inperfect' little gleeful joyful tree, who would fit most nicely in a galvanized chicken coop bucket and most importantly of all, look mighty resplendent decked out in my crocheted popcorn garland upon arriving home...
oh yes indeedy! Our #4 is the tale of one who never gives up, and i am the tale of sods law, the one year you find the most jolliest tree ever, you won't be there to share Christmas with him...
"oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how lovely are your branches"
"oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how lovely are your branches"
