This past weekend all Christmas broke loose at the Fisher
farm. I had an agenda when I woke up Sunday morning because I knew things were
only going to get busier before the big day and if I didn’t get a move on the
lights would never get up. It’s not like they can put themselves up.
So, I found the ladder and the long hooked pole that the
Farmer had rigged up for this very purpose. I got the box of lights out of the
basement, spent half an hour untangling them and stretching them out across the
front lawn, then I fastened the end of the string of lights to the end of the
hooked pole. Wielding my instrument like a super-long fly-fishing rod, I cast
up toward the top of the huge pine tree. And promptly got the entire apparatus
stuck there.
I got the pole back and the end of the lights are sort of up
at the top of the tree. Almost at the top. Good enough. A man on a galloping
horse would never notice, as my mom says.
I brought the pole to the barn and got a garden rake out
instead. Armed with that, I repeatedly pushed the string of lights up onto the
branches as I moved my ladder around the tree. Almost tipped over a few times,
and I imagined the boys watching me from the house. I was stubborn, didn’t ask
for help, and decided halfway through I didn’t need it anyway. I got the job
done.
Back in the house, I decided I would let the men go find me
a tree while I dragged boxes of decorations out of the attic crawl space. I
found the balls and the stars, the angels and the ribbon that I wind through
the branches. I tested the strings of white lights and hung the stockings all
over the living room. Then I started getting the house ready for Sunday dinner
and waited for the men. I had given them less than an hour to find me a tree
before we had to start cooking dinner. I hoped they would be lucky.
I remember one Christmas a few years ago when I challenged
the Farmer to find me a tree on the property. We drove the ATV out back over deep
snow and I pointed at the top of a huge tree. He climbed up and sawed the top
five feet off. When it fell down to the ground and rolled over I burst out
laughing. The back of it was just a bunch of brown twigs. My poor husband was
covered in sweat from his tree-climbing and sawing efforts. We just left the
poor thing there in the snow and went to visit the Johnson Brothers instead.
And that’s what we have done every year – gone to a tree farm to pick out a
perfectly trimmed and cultivated Christmas tree, like the cityfolk.
Well, this year I decided I wanted to try again. And the
Farmer is always up for a challenge. Within an hour I heard the ATV returning,
a beautiful round tree on the trailer and our two Chinese students dangling
their feet off the back of the ride.
It wasn’t until they unloaded their bounty that I was told
it was actually two trees tied together. Leave it to the Farmer to come up with
that little feat of engineering. Bringing it into the house was a bit of a
challenge, and so was finding a space for it in the living room. I got the
lights and ribbon, ornaments and candy canes on it before our guests arrived
and even snapped a picture or two. John and Jerry pronounced it beautiful, and
I have to agree. It’s the best tree we have ever had.
Our beautiful double-barreled Christmas tree tried to fall
into the room once during Sunday dinner, reminding us to tighten the screws in
the base as well as tying it to the curtain rods on both sides. Now it is
secure. It should make it through the holidays, as long as I remember to lock
the cats in the basement before I go to bed at night. ‘Cause if they get into
it, the song will be “oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, your ornaments are
history…”
Email: Dianafisher1@gmail.com
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