Author’s Note: The first thing after arriving in Savannah Friday morning — one week before Xmas eve, we went shopping for nearly live Christmas tree. We found one and erected, watered, lighted and decorated it before the sun had set that day.
The Home Depot tree tent was near empty of trees, the tree selection sparse but still seemingly fresh, and the two men working it were cutting deals on the trees they had. Straight cash at prices around 35%-40% off. As we drove home with our green bundle of joy, we passed by several other denuded tree lots making us feel really lucky to have scored our gem.
-Marlow
2021’s tree
One would think the call of softly falling pine needles would be pleasant. Wouldn’t you? Yes, indeed, especially if you could capture that gentle, wintertime sound in your own home during the holiday season. Peaceful. A yuletide rainstick. An infrequent pitter-patter upon wrapped presents in the midst of a jam session with the crackle of the fire.
Let’s travel back in time, almost half century ago during my first holiday season in Key West. Our little nuclear family had never had an artificial tree in any house we called home. I can still remember the time just two years before pre-Navy when, fighting the wind blasted snow upon our wrapped red faces sweeping a northern Indiana tree farm with two wee little girls in tow, I dragged a just harvested bad-assed tree back to the farmer to pay him in cash and lash it atop of our metallic green with white stripe AMC Gremlin for a fun if not partially obscured windshield drive back home and some serious cutting since it was an semi-tractor trailer wide 10-footer destined for a small 8 plus foot ceilinged room inside a pre-WW I four-square home. We had lots of garland and wreath materials. The girls had a blast making them.
We took pride in finding the largest beast each year, and the annual tree hunts of my youth are some of my fondest memories.
We didn’t always pick winners during my childhood. Eyeballed measurements and house moves sometimes landed a tree too tall or too pitifully small for the space. There was the year of the “spider egg tree” and another of the “withered bird in its nest” tree. No trauma for us, since were raised to be immune to fragility back in those olden times. Then there were the occasional ones with “Mack the Knife” sharp needles that our stringing the lights on and ornamenting them left hands and arms looking like we’d been hugging on a cactus.
Despite these challenges, I did not waver. I never had even the fleetest moment of envy towards those who lived the artificial life with its pre-erected, pre-lit, turn-key decorating and 5-minute setups.
But the tree situation in Key West was challenging. The selection was abysmal, supply chains made this current COVID stuff look bountiful, and the prices charged with straight faces made me consider outright black masking up and armed robbery. It must have been the glint of the tropical sun that caused me to miss the trees had a slightly less than green pallor.
So, let me just cut to the chase. I bought our pre-cut real tree, claimed by the salesman to have been recently cut down at a North Carolina tree farm (utter BS) — not a podium placer but, so I thought at that time, a solid, sturdy choice. Even had tiny pinecones here and there which I considered a happy, pleasant omen. When I got it home, it turned out the trunk was just a bit too thick for our stand. No matter. I got an old-style hand-me-down stand from a neighbor. Tree fit right in with its crown branch crest coming to within an inch shy of grazing the ceiling. Like a glove. I filled the base with water to keep the tree a healthy zombie, and I gave it a day or so to settle before we decorated. All according to Hoyle. A-J, squared away. SOP. Life was good.
One day later, it was trimming time! Lights were untangled, ornaments unpacked. Girls had on their paper Santa hats we had made and a chilled six pack of Bud was perched on our 1970s chromed, spindly legged, Formica faux butcher block kitchen tabletop. I gently moved the tree away from the wall a bit to give us space and we were ready to rumb-!
Wait, is the floor a bit more than normal sprinkled with pine needles? WTFO (yes, I’m in the uniformed employ of US Navy and we silently cursed like that in front of our innocents). Where? Right there. The tree! The tree is – !
It was too late. Everywhere. Tree was examined up and down. What the f#ck.
I brought the saw out to shave the trunk down to save it. Jammed it in back the stand. Tree back up. Nope. Tried it once again. I stopped. Didn’t want a once-solid looking tree looking like a squat-ass bush.
Whatever. Lights were strung. Ornaments hooked. No one was (yet) pissy. Bud was now drinking like high end Euro beer once was supposed to taste like. Tree trimming night was not ruined but wonderfully completed.
On the next morning I decided to refill the tree’s zombie water. It was probably thirsty since I recut its trunk. But the base was still full. To the brim. What? It was not -. It was not taking water!
I touched a branch. Needles came off like dust. As my brain tried to process this, an ornament fell from a brittle branch and shattered on the floor. The tree . . . was dead.
My mind turned briefly murderous towards the gypsies who sold me the tree and who were no longer camping and selling full-on, dead-assed, needled sticks at the now empty county fair parking lot located mid-island. So . . .
I went full salty sailor mode as if I were on the pier in some Far Western Pacific port.
Over the next few days, the tree lost more ornaments until I finally un-stubborned myself enough to remove each one the unknowing cared about. So, we were left with an unlit, half decorated tree containing only the ornaments that no gave a rat’s ass about. The only saving grace in this process was that one of the casualties was a ball that my least favorite relative bequeathed to me. No more would I be reminded of fate’s cruelties to me for evolution’s poor choices that graced my life.
Good riddance.
It was then at about five days until Christmas — the tree had been a corpse for well over a week. To circle back to the falling needles, to prevent my two girls from the life altering trauma associated with a daily shaking loose like a waterfall of death and failure I got up before each dawn to turn the tree, reposition the balls and sweep up that night’s needle fall to preserve some semblance of tree life. My real motivation for these efforts was that I didn’t think I could have suffered the abject humiliation by my girls joyfully making pine needle angels on the floor of our living room. Although such a scene atop the white terrazzo floors of base housing units had a certain artistic flair . . .
Meanwhile, as the Baby Jesus birth day and His blessed gift-a-thon approached, we were left with a thinned out, ever-shedding exoskeleton.
To make up for my epically poor tree selection I bought the girls extra Santa-delivered, irritating Japanese sourced toys like the execrable Strawberry Lite-Brite and other POS.
So, if you’re having a stressful 2021 holiday season, if your packages are delayed, in-laws are circling, and the breaks just aren’t going your way, feel free to smile about my daily dustpan full of needles and how warm and cheerful it is to gaze upon a tree with extinguished lights, sparse sh@tty ornaments, and a needle coverage mimicking the sad progression of LeBron James’ hairline.
NB All Christmases are Merry if your focus is adjustable, you know.
PS Here’s what a Savannah Merry Christmas looks like at Forsyth Park:
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