A treeless Christmas?

At Christmas most people fall into two categories – cut tree or artificial tree. Our family has always been a cut tree family. A cut tree in the house just smells like Christmas. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with artificial Christmas greenery. Artificial garland hangs from our archway and graces our mantle. We even have an artificial wreath on our door, but we have never had an artificial tree. Somehow all of us feel Christmas cannot be Christmas without the annual engineering feat of positioning the tree just perfectly in the stand and then scraping sticky sap from our hands. And could presents possibly be Christmas presents without a few needles sprinkled on the wrappings? But all that may have to change this year because we cannot find a suitable cut tree at a suitable price.

We should have known we were in trouble when on Monday Lite1x and I had to hunt for a Christmas tree lot. There used to be one in every block. The first one we came to had a fair number of conifers, but we both looked at each other in dismay when we saw the price. Wait, wait. That first one we looked at was really too tall so perhaps the $125 tag was the tall tree price. Eagerly we hunted a shorter tree only to be amazed that the price was still $20 to $25 more than we paid last year. Has the Grinch stolen the Christmas tree by finally pricing it out of existence?

Oh my. What to do. Yesterday morning I consulted Matt, one of the youngest cut tree die-hards in the country apparently. Carefully I laid out the facts and asked the question. Could we make the switch to an artificial tree this year? He agreed somewhat reluctantly. It had all the look of another milestone reached in his young life – somewhat like when he realized he would be receiving no more stuffed cats for presents. (That’s another story.) But only having one child’s approval was not enough. I called Acronymsical later in the day. As usual his phone was off, and he did not return my call. As I had handbell practice last night, I asked Matt to call brother and discuss the tree situation. I gathered that with more reservations than his younger brother, Acronymsical gave in to the possibility of an artificial tree although, Matt said, brother would prefer a cut tree. We all would!

That brings us to today. With a very short window of time, I began a fast trip to various stores that I thought would have artificial trees. Shock!! Most merchants have sold out of trees that would meet our height and girth requirements. I did find one tree at Home Depot of the appropriate size, but of a ghastly, bright green that looked like it had been painted with the green in a small box of Crayola crayons. But I felt shock when I reached K-Mart’s Christmas department. It echoed it had so many empty shelves and only a few very short trees.

I’m totally discombobulated! My inner child is screaming. How can anyone have Christmas without a tree? Wait! Perhaps we can put our nativity scene on a table in front of the living room window and put our presents under it. Yes, Linda. There really is a way to have Christmas without a tree. Not the same, perhaps not traditional, but Christmas is more than a tree.

Stay tuned. I don’t think the story has ended yet.