Wednesday, December 12, 2012

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OKAY. IT'S TUESDAY AFTERNOON, THE TREE is in an upright position in the living room. It was no easy task to saw off the extraneous limbs and manipulate it into the stand.  We ended up with a colossal mess of twigs and needles and dirt on the floor, as is the tradition. And then there was  the top-level (though carried out mostly while lying on the floor) job of trying to get that tree to stand evenly and securely with its best limbs forward.  This involved the tightening of screws and then the relaxing of screws, and the shifting of tree, and re-tightening of screws, and then the relaxing of the screws... (Every once in a while the air is a little bit blue, Reader Dear, in spite of the red and green season!)
 
But as I said, the tree at last stood tall.  I swept up the needles, and even vacuumed the floor.  I filled the well of the stand with water.  I scurried up to the attic and brought down the boxes of ornaments, the strings of lights.  All the lovely baubles.

At that point, Reader Dear, I was floating on a so-happy-that's-done feeling, and decided that tomorrow would be soon enough to tackle the job of dressing the tree!
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Wednesday morning.  By the light of the new sun coming in the windows, I studied the tree. I  thought about the fact that in two weeks it would be Christmas eve, and I thought about that thing called time crunch.  And then I mused how that kind of crunch is never talked up eloquently the way grains in breakfast cereals are. Or little lumps of sugar in candy bars. While I was looking at the tree and time was crunching, an unhappy realization began to dawn...this tree was going to need a trunk trimming!
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"It just looks weird!" I complained to the yard man tonight.     "Look how it stands so high off the floor!  Look at those bare bottom branches!"  In the spirit of Christmas, that yard man went off to get his saw.
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In the same spirit of Christmas, I'll spare you, Reader Dear, the excruciating details of extracting the tree from its (now) water-filled holder,  returning it to the porch, hacking off five inches of the (now) water-logged trunk. Perhaps it goes without saying, but it didn't go without doing--we then had to engineer that tree back through the door. Struggle to overcome its inclination toward an inclination.  Once again we needed to grunt and groan and crawl around on the floor.

But now---now, Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up!  Come one, come all!  Right this way!  What you are about to see will amaze you  (ahem, well at least it amazes me)!   Hooray for a tree that is finally ready to be dressed in its holiday garb!!

It is READY FOR LIGHTS!  (Don't take it lightly, Reader Dear!)

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From henceforth the yard man needs to be named The Yard Man.
And so shall it be. Amen

KTdid said...

Ah,the inconsistencies. You are so right, Anony! Henceforth forever!
Q.