Oh! Christmas Tree
You know how it is. It's Christmastime and you especially want to please the kids.
That is pretty much how Tannen-bomb got into the house.
Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum or, in its Anglicized version, Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree.
"Your branches green delight us," or so goes one version of the lyrics. Our Tannen-bomb was different.
The children were in their teens when Tannen-bomb arrived. We had been building up to this tree for years, though we didn't realize it, being so busy with soccer, hockey, school projects and all that.
When the children were small, the Christmas tree process was simple, like a series of Norman Rockwell scenes. We drove to a Christmas tree farm somewhere in the Hartford area, usually the first weekend in December. We picked out a tree, which I cut with my bow saw, tied it to the roof of my Jeep, and put it up when we got home while the kids sipped hot chocolate in front of the fireplace.
One year, foreshadowing Christmas tree issues to come, I tied the tree -- a modest 7-footer -- to the rack atop the Jeep. It was a windy day and when we got home I discovered that the rails of the rack were partly ripped from the roof by the force of wind against tree. As I recall, that was a $200 repair.
As the children grew, so did the size of the tree, at their insistence. We moved to Newtown and I now realize that buying a new house with a ceiling something like 20-feet high in the living room was a mistake. Allison was in middle school, Scott in elementary school. A whole new order of trees was possible. The kids were old enough to recognize this.
We went to a 10-footer.
What the 10-footer did was expose the inherent tensions in putting up a Christmas tree. For years, I put the tree in one of those red-and-green stamped-metal stands. I hated the thing but always managed to get the tree in there sort-of straight, though my wife invariably complained that the tree seemed crooked. It undoubtedly was crooked, but I never paid any attention to these comments. I learned long ago that actually putting up the tree is a chore, that it has nothing to do with the joy of the season, that it is important to dash out of the room the moment the tree is standing. Wait a moment, and someone wants to adjust the tree just a little bit this way or, hmm, maybe that way.
A bit of background. I am not handy. I don't want to be handy. I figure if you know how to fix a stopped-up toilet, sooner or later you'll have to fix one. I've heard of miter boxes but have never knowingly touched one. As far as I am concerned, the only do-it-yourself project that makes any sense is fly-tying.
Back to the 10-footer. I put it in the stamped-metal stand and brought it in the house. No sooner had I placed it in its corner than it fell over. That was it. I threw out the stand, drove to the hardware store and bought a much more substantial tree stand.
I got the tree into the new stand by myself, which by then had become customary. Once the children were actually big enough to help put up the tree they disappeared the moment we got home. They still insisted on picking out the tree, mind you, but as for putting it up, well, gee, Dad, we have homework.
About a week later, the 10-footer went down again, in the middle of the night. There was a whooshing sound and then the tinkling of glass ornaments breaking, along with the jingling of some bells. I don't even know how I heard any of it, sleeping as I was. It was as if the tree had gently nudged me before it went over to ensure I might hear the whole thing, which seemed like slow motion. My wife, Susan, was not happy -- there were no gentle nudges -- because the water in the bottom of the stand, a half-gallon or more, flowed over the hardwood floor and onto the carpet.
As you might expect, this led to reform. Susan is a patient woman, the antithesis of a scold, really, but I guess enough was enough. I was told that from now on I needed to secure the tree to the wall with cables or something. You know things are getting out of hand when you not only need a stand that weighs a ton, but you have to tether the tree, as if it would run off. Tether it I did, or else. I looped a cord around the trunk, sunk nails into the woodwork, tied the cord to the nails. It was not as clean a job as a handy kind of guy would do, but it worked.
There were no other tree issues that year. We dutifully spent far more than is sensible on presents for the kids, as we always do. Christmas came and went.
The following year, the kids talked me into a 12-footer and, despite the tethering, that tree went down one night, too. I had done a halfhearted job with the tethering, as I recall. Whatever. I bought a second even larger stand, the Hulk Hogan of stands. This baby was made of quarter-inch-thick steel, the parts welded together, with long stable legs. Welded. Big.
The following year friends sent us a Christmas card with the note, "Here's hoping your tree remains standing this year."
If I recall correctly, it was the year 2000 that Tannen-bomb came into our lives.
Scott was 14. He went with me to a farm down the road to pick out the tree. The farmer had just cut some 12-footers, so we took a look at them. Already cut, and convenient, but expensive, $120 as I recall. I think the farmer overheard me saying I didn't want to spend that much for a tree.
"I've got a tree that might work for you," he said. He pointed to a hillside out back, much farther from the road than you want your tree to be if you are cutting it yourself and dragging it back to the car.
Tannen-bomb was a 35-footer with a trunk that had to be 18 inches in diameter. For years it had escaped the saw, probably because it was far from the parking area and grew at the edge of steeply sloping rock. There were no boughs for about the first 10 feet, but after that the tree was reasonably well-shaped. Here was the deal: in return for my getting that tree off his land, the farmer would charge me only $35. He also would cut the tree with his chain saw and then, from the top, cut us a tree of any length we wanted. Scott loved the idea. I loved the price.
Down it came, creaking, cracking, crashing. How big a tree did I want? I knew with Scott along I'd never get out of there with any less than a 12-footer. Scott wanted a 15-footer. I told him I doubted I could get a 15-footer into the house, never mind atop the car. He offered a compromise, 14-feet. OK. It took the three of us to drag it to the car, get it up on my SUV and tie it down. Not a good sign.
Back home, Scott agreed this time to help me put it in the stand and get it into the house. This took forever and made a mess, but somehow we got it into its living room corner. I was reminded to do a good job with the tethering. I did my usual job.
The kids loved it, and the next day we decorated it. It was a tree so large that we almost didn't have enough ornaments. We definitely did not have enough lights. Off to the store for more lights. We also needed a 10-foot step-ladder to trim the top.
The good thing about Tannen-bomb was that it chose to go over on a Monday while I was at work. The bad thing was that my wife was home at the time. It was not so much a whooshing sound this time. It was a loud crashing sound with lots of shattering glass, both ornaments and bulbs. Little pieces of glass were driven into the rug. Water spilled over the presents under the tree and washed over the floor and carpet. Knickknacks were swept off tables. The floor and coffee table were scratched. A mess.
I know all this because the details were related to me in a phone call I received at work.
Since then we moved to Farmington. Unable to learn from our previous mistake, we bought a house with a cathedral ceiling in the living room - not as high a ceiling as the house in Newtown, but, still, up there.
The first year in the new house -- Allison by now was out of college and in an apartment, and Scott was away at college -- I cut and put up a 7-foot tree, full and nicely shaped, quite stable. The kids ridiculed it when they came home for Christmas.
The next year, I cut a 12-footer. It did not fall down. The kids were much happier when they saw it. But Scott noticed there was space between the top of the tree and the ceiling.
He said it was possible we could get a bigger tree in there.
—————
A version of this essay originally appeared in Seasons magazine.
Allison, age 4, holding baby brother Scott beside a modest Christmas tree of perhaps 6 feet in height.
Scott, 2, and Allison, 6. The height of the Christmas tree crept up as they grew up.
After we moved to a new home in Newtown with a very high living room ceiling the kids pleaded for ever larger Christmas trees. This was a 10-footer, as I recall. It crashed to the floor days later.
Allison and Scott hanging out by the tree. My job was to see that Christmas trees did not fall over. They almost always did.