Twelve Days of Christmas Traditions: Two Christmas Trees
There are few things that can ruin Christmas quicker than the realization that the Christmas tree you spent hours and hours trying to find has a bald patch. Or is crooked. Or sheds its needles faster than Sadie wees on the floor at the sight of Mom. That's why, for years and years, our family endeavor to choose the perfect Christmas tree was a nigh-day-long experience, culminating only when that perfect tree was discovered and claimed.
By Beckie.
We can try to argue that she didn't find the Lambson family Christmas tree every year, but that's like saying the Yankees didn't win every World Series in the 1990's. Maybe it's true, but they won enough that the other champions are irrelevant in the bigger picture of history. Beckie ALWAYS found the most perfect tree at whatever farm we happened to be patronizing in a given year. You might as well accept it.
For me, Christmas tree hunting will always have two major associations: 1) the day after Thanksgiving; 2) the Odles. We always went the day after Thanksgiving (unless we couldn't - then we went the next day), and for years we always went to the property of Bruce and Betsy Odle. They had some land that used to be a coal mine where pine trees then grew wild; maybe they weren't the best-quality trees, but they were free. And we got to ride ATV's to get to them. And then we got to ride said ATV's around the Odle's wide-open fields until Mom and Dad said it was time to go.
Once we (again, Beckie) had found that perfect tree, we carried it home in the back of our Toyota/Ford/Nissan/whatever pickup truck Mom and Dad owned at the time and set it up in the living room. We didn't decorate it until the next day, probably because it always took Mom and Dad that long to figure out how to keep it from a) tipping over, and b) hitting crucial furniture on the way down.
Decorating was always a joy - put on the Carpenters' Christmas album, find your favorite ornaments which, in the older kids' cases, were almost definitely the glass/glittered/colored bells. All season long we'd hide them and the others would try to find them. It was like our own Christmas "Where's Waldo."
Our tree was always one of those that is a mish-mash of ornaments: some gifts from Grandmas, some gifts from others, some made at school, some bought on a trip to Nauvoo or Temple Square, some bought because they looked cute at the time but now that you step back they're kind of dumb but you don't want to throw them away because despite their utter uselessness that would be a waste ofgood ugly ornaments.
Sure, it would never belong in an issue of "Martha Stewart Living." But she's a felon, so who cares anyway?
Final note: this post is called "Two Christmas Trees" because we ended up getting two trees each year - a pine for the main tree and a cedar in the basement acting as the tree to hold all the plush ornaments that would no longer fit on the main tree.
You have been enlightened.
By Beckie.
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| Perfect for any house, as long as your living room ceiling is 46 feet from the ground. |
We can try to argue that she didn't find the Lambson family Christmas tree every year, but that's like saying the Yankees didn't win every World Series in the 1990's. Maybe it's true, but they won enough that the other champions are irrelevant in the bigger picture of history. Beckie ALWAYS found the most perfect tree at whatever farm we happened to be patronizing in a given year. You might as well accept it.
For me, Christmas tree hunting will always have two major associations: 1) the day after Thanksgiving; 2) the Odles. We always went the day after Thanksgiving (unless we couldn't - then we went the next day), and for years we always went to the property of Bruce and Betsy Odle. They had some land that used to be a coal mine where pine trees then grew wild; maybe they weren't the best-quality trees, but they were free. And we got to ride ATV's to get to them. And then we got to ride said ATV's around the Odle's wide-open fields until Mom and Dad said it was time to go.
 |
| I don't think this was the Odles' land, but this is about what searching for a Christmas tree ended up like every year. |
Once we (again, Beckie) had found that perfect tree, we carried it home in the back of our Toyota/Ford/Nissan/whatever pickup truck Mom and Dad owned at the time and set it up in the living room. We didn't decorate it until the next day, probably because it always took Mom and Dad that long to figure out how to keep it from a) tipping over, and b) hitting crucial furniture on the way down.
Decorating was always a joy - put on the Carpenters' Christmas album, find your favorite ornaments which, in the older kids' cases, were almost definitely the glass/glittered/colored bells. All season long we'd hide them and the others would try to find them. It was like our own Christmas "Where's Waldo."
 |
| The 2012 Lambson Family Christmas Tree - see if you can find the bells. |
Our tree was always one of those that is a mish-mash of ornaments: some gifts from Grandmas, some gifts from others, some made at school, some bought on a trip to Nauvoo or Temple Square, some bought because they looked cute at the time but now that you step back they're kind of dumb but you don't want to throw them away because despite their utter uselessness that would be a waste of
Sure, it would never belong in an issue of "Martha Stewart Living." But she's a felon, so who cares anyway?
 |
| Would you want this woman decorating your house for Christmas? |
You have been enlightened.
Comments
"By Beckie." I laughed for nearly a full minute. That's a record.