December 21, 2005

The Christmas Tree

We were young, and wanted a real Christmas tree. No plastic imitation pine, and certainly no saguaro cactus with multi-colored lights for us! We were in for the REAL Deal.

But, we lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and the prices for real, genuine, mountain-smelling trees were far beyond our meager budget. But, we were young and wanted a real tree, and so toured the tree lots often, searching unsuccessfully for a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

Then THE IDEA came. It was only a couple hours up to the Mogollon Rim, where there were pine trees, and cutting was free, and maybe the neighbors would like to go along!

The neighbors agreed, so Brenda made a picnic lunch, we gassed up the old VW Microbus for a Christmas Tree Party, and sang our way to the forest!!

It took an hour of walking in the woods to find the perfect tree. Just tall enough. Perfect Christmas Tree shape. Great-smelling needles. "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how lovely are your branches..."

Since we only needed the top of the tree, I slithered up, hung on for dear life, and did my best interpretation of a lumberjack. Twenty minutes later we had our prize, and began lugging it toward the car. The pitch dripped on our clothes. The branches scratched our arms. We tripped often, adding bruises and scrapes from the hillside rocks. Everything seemed determined to make this a long and bloody trip. So we laughed and sang our way through the brambles.

A normal VW microbus is 14 feet long. Our Tree was about 25. We lifted, trimmed, stretched, trimmed some more, scratched our heads, and finally "roped her down" for the journey home, top branches nearly dragging pavement.

At home we discovered that the ceilings had shrunk while we were gone. Our 21-foot trophy tree would either have to hang horizontally - stretching from the front door to the far end of the kitchen - or we'd have to cut it down to about 7 feet tall.

I cut off the tip of the top, giving us a 7-foot beauty. But it wouldn't stand straight, so I had to trip some more. Then there was a "cavernous area needing a limb," so I drilled a hole, cut a limb, and glued it in to fill the void. It was perfect, leaning to the left with road burns on the tip and one branch looking a bit droopy.

But it was OUR TREE. And so were the natural pine wreaths on the front door, back door, all windows, and the doors and windows of all our neighbors. The whole neighborhood had become family for Christmas. We sang carols. We laughed till cider came out our noses. We celebrated!

"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how lovely are your branches!"

Christmas truly is God's gift of "Joy to the world!"

Dick Duerksen
Assistant Vice President
Mission Development
Florida Hospital