My friend Lori was in town, and excited to help. I was amazed at how much faster the process went with another adult instead of a not-so-helpful kid. Lori never once ran wild through the lot, nor did she whine about lugging the tree out to the car. She didn't push any trees onto me and laugh, or poke me with any stray branches off the ground. And when I left her in the trunk-cutting line so I could pay for the tree, she simply said "OK," and did it.
I think Mark may be out of a job next year.
But this year, he did all right. He was thrilled to have Lori around because he said she's fun, but he was just glad he didn't have to carry the tree.
Most of the trees were tightly bound with string. Lori held an untied tree up for inspection and asked, "How about this one?" It looked pretty good, but I'm not one for picking the first tree I see. I had to look around a bit.
Lori and I unwrapped a second tree, spinning it carefully like a top while the string unwound. Meanwhile, Mark flung trees to the ground all around me, intent on finding the tree at the bottom of the pile. He was not happy when I ordered him to stop, and couldn't fathom why I was unhappy dodging trees. ("But they're CHRISTMAS trees," he said, as though that made it okay.)
After unwrapping the tree and looking over a couple others, I decided the first one was, indeed, the best. Mark disagreed, but only because he wanted to keep chucking trees.
We dragged the tree to have the trunk trimmed off. The guy made a quick cut, hoisted the tree up, and tossed it through a net. I'm not sure what the net is for; the tree remained the same bushy size, and it shed needles just as much as before.
And then came my favorite part of it all--getting the tree home. I've never let the size of my car dictate the size of my tree, which is unfortunate, since I have a small car. Last year, we didn't untie the tree--we simply tossed it in the backseat and let it hang out the window.
This year, it was a bit puffier untied. I also forgot that we had three people in the car, not two like last year. So instead of sitting up front like last year, Mark became close friends with the tree on the way home.
Our tree is now lit up and decorated, and everyone is enjoying it. Including the cats--Frankie loves his new water dish (the tree stand) although the pine needles obviously did not agree with him, since he hacked them up all over our bathroom floor.
Ahhh, I love the holidays...
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