Tree tales

As I was writing yesterday's post, I got to thinking about the Christmas trees of my past.
When I was little, we always had a live tree. My dad would meticulously hang the icicles one at a time all over the tree, perfectly spaced and perfectly even. (hey, at least I know where I got it from)
When I was a little older, we invested in one of those new fangled fake trees. They didn't smell as good, but they didn't leave sap and needles all over the carpet.

As time went on, our artificial tree obtained the nickname of "The toilet brush tree" mostly because it looked like a bunch of green toilet brushes sticking out of a green pole.

Eventually we (meaning me and my brother) decided that the toilet brush tree just wasn't cutting it anymore, and we begged and pleaded to have a live tree because having people see a bunch of light covered toilet brushes in one's window can really damage the social status of a teenager once again had live trees at Christmas time. (sap and pine needles included)

Plus, the live trees just smelled so much better. (not that the toilet brush like branches were ever used for anything other than decorative purposes) (to my knowledge)

I remember one year that someone told us that if you put sugar in the water for the tree, that the tree would stay green longer.
Each day, we would fill up the water dish in the tree stand with a generous amount of sugar water.
That tree was so thirsty! Each morning we were amazed to see that the water was nearly gone!
This went on for days and days. We figured that at this rate, the tree would stay green until Easter.

One evening, we were sitting in the kitchen eating dinner and we heard a strange noise coming from the living room.

When we went in to investigate, we found our dog drinking the sugar water out of the tree stand.

We should have known. Bubbles had been extra hyper all week long (and that's really saying something for a poodle/terrier mix)

Next story............

Several years ago, back when I had a real job (with a cubicle and a 401K and everything) I was sitting in my cubicle one morning working hard as always, and my friend who sat next to me came in late.
She seemed rather upset, and after a while told me why.
She had put up her Christmas tree the night before, and that morning her cat (a seriously HUGE cat) jumped in the tree and knocked it over. She had spent the morning cleaning everything up and trying to set the tree back up. Unfortunately, every time she got it standing, the big cat would jump in it again.

Eventually she gave up and came to work.

After an hour or so of her stewing over the tree while trying to get some work done, she went to the manager and told her that she needed to take some vacation time for a few hours to take care of an emergency.
When she came back that afternoon, she told us what she had done.

She said that she hung the tree from the ceiling so when the cat jumped on it, it just swung back and forth instead of falling over.

Genius.

I think she should have patented the idea. I think it would work for babies and toddlers too.

Earlier today, Aaron helped me write a song.


(Sung to the tune of Deck The Halls)

Trim the tree with OCD,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Space the ornaments evenly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Don't hang them close to one another,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Or you will annoy your mother,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.