It is very big. It is very thirsty. It is known as the Christmas tree from a place that rhymes with "bell." It is standing in the living room blocking any light that attempts to come in the windows.
It took five hours, much grunting and two saws to get it there. En route, it almost took out a light fixture, a wall hanging and a marriage. This tale of fetching the family Christmas tree might sound familiar. That is because our family, like many others, annually succumbs to the urge to cut down our Christmas tree. Every year somewhere in the proceedings one of us swears -- sometimes loudly -- that we will never do this again. But we do.
There is an adage that says something like the higher up the apple tree, the sweeter the fruit. The equivalent adage for Christmas trees is the longer the drive to the Christmas tree farm, the greener the needles.
This year we drove 20 miles, one way, to get a tree.
Family tradition dictates that during the trek, tapes of sentimental seasonal music should be played on the car stereo. This rarely happens, however, because no one can find the tapes, at least not in December. This year we listened to a little Led Zeppelin, then traveled in silence.
The forecast had called for rain, but when we got to the tree farm the sun was shining. I couldn't believe our good luck. The annual fight among family members over which tree was the best boiled down to a relatively mild disagreement between the 9-year-old and the rest of the family. The 9-year-old preferred a tall, thin tree. My wife and I and the 13-year-old liked the shorter, but very full, tree. The 9-year-old eventually went along with our preference, but not before he hurled a few insults at our tree, including a description of it as "too fat."
The 9-year-old turned out to be right. After we cut the tree down, a guy who worked at the tree farm looked at it and shook his head.
Our tree, he said, had been formed by two trees growing together. That meant it had two trunks. That meant it could not go through the baler, the device that puts a plastic mesh around the tree, compressing the branches into a tight bundle. If it went through the baler, the guy said, one of the trunks would crack and very soon the needles on our tree would look very dead.
"I told you so," said the 9-year-old.
No one likes to be sassed by their child. But it is especially hard to take when the kid is right.
It took all four of us to get the tree up on the roof of the station wagon. Then I lashed it down with every piece of elastic cord, rope, twine and shoe string I could get my hands one. Our drive home moved slower than a funeral procession. Whenever I hit 40 mph, the tree would threaten to take flight. To avoid the wind blasts from passing trucks, I took the low-velocity route, winding two-lane roads. Half an hour into the trip, the passengers grew restless. Moods did not brighten when I took a "short cut" and ended up running into the Christmas parade in Hampden.
I knew the tree was fatter than our station wagon. When I got home I was worried that it might also be fatter than our front door. Instead of carrying the tree into the house, we rammed it home. It looked like a scene out of a movie called something like "Christmas Tree Storm Troopers."
The tree didn't go willingly. It rattled a few glass fixtures in the front hall and knocked a quilt off the wall.
I thought my struggle was over. I was wrong. My plan was to put the tree in the grips of my trusty Christmas tree holder. The tree holder was a veteran. It had tamed many trees. It was heavy. It was metal. It was bad. It was also too small to fit over the big, fat trunk of this big, fat tree. So right there in the middle of the living room, I had to pull out more saws and saw hunks of sappy wood away until the trunk would squeeze into the Christmas tree holder.
When the tree was "secure," my wife, older son and I grunted as we pushed the tree and the stand toward the bay window. It wouldn't fit in the bay window. I trimmed off enough shrubbery to start a garden shop, then the slimmed-down tree fit in the window.
There it stands, dominating the living room, soaking up gallons of water, filling the house with wonderful aroma. It looks great.
I know there are some people who avoid all this by putting up artificial trees. They are missing the spirit of the season. Christmas is a time for excess, a time for struggle. A time for too-fat trees.