Monday, December 06, 2004

Escape to Pine Needle Mountain

Last December, after Christmas 2003, I bought a nine foot fake Christmas tree at a 70% discount. I wanted a good one, but did not want to spend $200 for it. It's been sitting in our garage all these months, patiently waiting for that special time of year and ignoring a couple hundred bumps from the car. Last night, after a week of cajoling from Rachel, we put it up.

We never had fake trees when I was a kid. Always real with the pine needle scent; always big with full branches; and always short needles because it's easier to hang the ornaments. So I was violently opposed to the fake tree thing. It didn't feel like Christmas unless you could smell the pine needles. But it was necessary for the first few years because we lived in apartments. Sharon didn't mind because her family had almost always had a fake tree so she was used to it. Last year, we were in our own house and we could finally have a real tree. I was excited.

You know how some movies are not nearly as good when you see them as an adult? Like Escape to Witch Mountain, for instance. Great movie. When you're nine. Well, it turns out real Christmas trees are kind of like Escape to Witch Mountain for me. The wooden acting you don't notice when you're nine is just like the million pine needles that inhabit every crack in your house - really annoying. I swear we were vacuuming up needles in June.

Mom and Dad, I just want to say thank you for dealing with all those damn needles all those years and hiding the pain from me. I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I am not as self sacrificing a parent. Consequently, I bought a fake tree at 70% off the day after Christmas last year.

It's a great tree. Easy to put up and it looks great. And it's NINE feet tall. I love a tall Christams tree. Trees are supposed to be tall. I should have to stand on something to hang ornaments on the top branches.

Rachel had a great time trimming the tree. And she was very careful with the ornaments which is a huge improvement over last year when a few were broken. This year, I was the only one to break an ornament. Sharon and I had to take turns being on Sami watch to keep her from getting at the tree. After we were finished, we put Sharon's antique chest in front of the tree to block the inquisitive 10 month old. We listened to Bing sing Christmas tunes and we smiled remembering the history of each ornament. It was a great family evening....everything was perfect....

Until I noticed the fake pine needles on the floor.

3 Comments:

At 11:52 AM, December 06, 2004, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that's the one. I saw it when I was about nine years old. I caught a little bit of it on TV about ten years ago. It didn't live up to my memory...

 
At 2:01 PM, December 06, 2004, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Escape from Witch Mountain does have the flying Winnebago in it. There is also a sequel, Return to Witch Mountain. You can kind of recapture the magic if you read the books...although you will of course always have as the visuals in your head of Ike Eisenman as the kid and that one guy as the grumpy, Waltons-like Grandpa. Whatever happened to Ike Eisenman?? A question that does not get asked often enough.

Both Witch Mountains were on "The Wonderful World of Disney" at 6 p.m. on Sunday night.



Note: Sharon's family did not *always* have fake trees. There was a time when there was a yearly ritual of driving to the tree farm at Panora, trudging around in the snow to choose which tree to chop down, Sharon falling into one of the holes of the previously harvested trees and being unable to get out unassisted because she was too short, then bringing the tree home where older sister stood on strained tiptoe for an extended length of time to hold the top of the tree trunk while prickly, poky, painful pine needles which caused an itchy rash dug into her wrists and Mom knelt on the floor, cussing in some very un-Christmas-y language as she tightened the screws on the tree stand to hold the tree up...then stood upright and noticed it was tilting, so the whole thing had to be done again.

Ah, the good old days of real trees.

The fake one looks fine.

 
At 2:34 PM, December 06, 2004, Blogger Matt said...

I said "ALMOST always" because of course I can never forget the story (repeated each year) of Sharon falling in the tree holes. :-)

 

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