Apparently, you cannot get Santa Paws to come to your house without bringing the outside inside. I asked Moms and Dads to bring Chipper inside but they said, "Noooo. It has to be a shrub from outside. It must be a big, big tree." Moms and Dads wanted to make Christmas wicked special this year. They wanted to make an event out of the tree picking ceremony, so they went to the Jones Family Farm to hew down their own shrub. When you get to the Farm, they give you a saw and set you free. (They ran out of maps to show you what kinds of trees were where so Moms and Dads just randomly roamed the fields of trees.)
Here's Moms. With a saw. (Did I mention it is cold outside?)
Moms and Dads walked and walked...and walked until, at last, they found the perfect tree. They believe it is a Colorado Blue Spruce tree; since the Jones peoples ran out of maps, though, Moms and Dads aren't sure. They can tell you one thing though - the tree is pokey. Really pokey. So pokey that they named it the Christmas Cactus. Here's Dads with the tree. He can touch it because he was protected by his puffy arctic explorer coat.
Here's Moms hugging the tree. Again, she can touch it because she is protected by her puffy, puffy puff coat. And her hood.
Here's where the non-romantic part comes in: once you find the tree, you must cut it down. In case you were wondering, the base of the tree is not a wee twig that you can snap. It requires someone (let's say, Dads) to get down on the ground, move the pokey, pokey branches aside, and saw like mad. And sweat. The night before, we got our first snow. The day they got the tree, it was warm, and the snow melted and made the dirt into mud. Dads got wicked, wicked muddy like a pony that rolled in the mud. (Only it was Dads.) Here's Dads rolling in the mud.
Once Dads hewed down the tree, they counted the rings to see how old the Christmas Cactus was. They think it was ten years old. (I cannot count that high. I only have four paws and one tail.)
Did I mention that Moms and Dads wanted the *perfect* tree? Finding the*perfect* tree required walking far, far away from the place where you park your car. And, once you find the perfect tree, you have to carry the tree all the way back to your truck. The Jones' folks said to bring a tarp but Dads thought that was the unmanly way to do it. Everyone - LISTEN. When you cut down your own tree, it has something that your friendly Home Depot tree does not have -- WATER. It is wicked, wicked heavy with water. So heavy that Moms couldn't even manage to carry part of it. My manly Dads carried the pokey, pokey Christmas tree all the way to the car. Don't be fooled folks; that is not a walking tree. That is my Dads working wicked hard. He was sweaty, kind of smelly and had cut his face and was bleeding from the tree's pokies. It was not fun.
Moms and Dads got the tree home (but not before buying some wine from the Jones' winery) and Moms decorated the whole thing with lights and ornaments and ribbons. The tree is so pokey that Moms had to wear a long sleeve shirt and her leather gloves when she decorated it. This is no lie.
In other "do-not-touch" news, Moms and Dads bought their first Department 56 house. They are going to buy one every year. They are collecting the Snow Village houses and, for their first house, they bought the Dutchman's Pancake House (because Dads likes pancakes). The house lights up and has a windmill that goes around and around and I am not allowed to touch it. It is pretty to look at. If I stare at it long enough, I fall asleep. But, really, I do that with most things.
Here's hoping that your Christmas Cactus isn't as pokey as ours,
JDamn - OUT!
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1 comment:
Bah humbug, J-Damn. Only kiddin.
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