All the kids were home for Christmas this year and it was so wonderful! We all went to church together last week and it was very strange to sit there all together again after years of having the kids in various places of the country for various activities. I guess what was strange about it was that they're all so grown up now. There is some type of great satisfaction to having your grown children all together at church. It's a sense of completion or just maybe the beauty of the family all going somewhere united in belief. A work of art ...a display of one's magnum opus of sorts! Well, anyway, it was very nice.
Austin arrived on Thursday the 17th of December. I only had one more day of work left before winter break started! Since Coy also had Thursday off of work, and Coy has a truck and muscles, we decided to get the tree the day Austin arrived home. So when I got off work, we headed right out to go tree hunting. Every year getting the tree presents some sort of
issue. Last year it was just me and the three youngest girls, Katie, Emily and Mckenzie. We got our tree successfully, but getting it home was very difficult. No one would help us tie the tree on top of the car that year because of "liability" issues. Consequently, we had to figure it out ourselves which turned out to be quite comical. Other years we had always convinced some empathetic soul to help us but not this year. Our home teacher from our old ward had also helped us on a few occasions. Ultimately, we ended up tying all the doors shut as we secured the tree to the top of the car, which also meant that we had imprisoned ourselves inside the car as well. When we got home, Mckenzie had to climb out a car window, find some scissors and cut us out of the vehicle. We were excited to have a truck this year so as not to deal with securing the tree on top of the car again.We usually go to the Snowshoe tree farm in Orting but when we arrived it was closed for the season already! What is wrong with the Snowshoe people? Don't they know some people work and can't get their tree right away? This untimely closure presented us with a dilemma. You see, we have a patented Snowshoe tree stand. It has a spike that sticks straight up and they have a special drilling system with which they drill a perfect hole in the trunk of the tree that enables the user to plunk the tree directly on the spike with no further hassle or complication. I have loved and enjoyed this special stand for several years now and it has enabled me as a single woman to successfully put up my own tree for a number of years now. Especially those pesky Noble trees that are very very heavy and have humongous trunks. However, I should have known better than to commit to their tree stand. It is really just a wicked trick to keep the consumer a prisoner. We are now confined to only shopping for our tree with them. Oh what a clever scheme!
Angry that I had limited myself to but one tree farm and realizing the convenience of the special spike tree stand was out of the question, we found another tree farm on the same road as the Snowshoe farm. It was open until 7pm. Finally! A tree farm that understands the plight of the working woman! I remember one other year that we tried to go after work to get the tree and once again Snowshoe let us down. They closed at like 4pm due to daylight issues they informed us.
Anyway, we went to the new tree farm and chose a lovely Noble tree which was less expensive than the Snowshoe trees anyway. We did not choose to cut it down this year even though Coy was home. The tree farm owners informed us that it was super muddy and we might as well just choose a tree that was already cut. They looked very alive and healthy so we chose one of those. Now, what to do about a stand? The men at the tree place showed us "the best stand ever made" but to the mere mortal eye it was hard to see the grandness to it. It just looked like a bent piece of steel. They said it was "malleable" so we could arrange the tree any way we wanted to get it straight but Coy and I were both skeptical. The price of the best tree stand ever made? $38! Yikes! We told them about our special tree stand and they offered to drill a hole in the trunk of the tree with their hand drill. Now, I knew this would not work. How did I know? Last year my hometeacher tried to do this for my mother's tree and it was hopelessly crooked. Somehow a hand drill just doesn't work the way the Snowshoe drill does. However, I was hopeful and allowed them to drill the hole. I thought maybe they had some special method to replicate the Snowshoe method. They didn't. It was just a bunch of old men in rubber jumpsuits trying to sell a tree. When we got home the tree did not stand straight or even close to it.
Coy and I went to the Fred Meyer and found a cheap tree stand and brought it home. We realized it was too small for the tree trunk to fit into (those darn Nobles) and were exhausted at the idea of going back to the store again to get a bigger one. Coy worked some magic with a saw and managed to get the tree in the stand. Yay for men and saws! I know this sounds kind of sexist and weakling but I am okay with the fact that I as a woman do not like to saw trees or grovel around in the dirt. Some women do and that's fine for them. I like the lady card on that one myself.
We ended up with a beautiful tree and broke the bands that held us prisoner to the Snowshoe tree farm! I feel free and triumphant. Hopefully, Coy is here again next year!
