{"id":2086,"date":"2010-12-13T10:51:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2010-12-13T10:51:45","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:51:45","slug":"ohhh-christmas-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/ohhh-christmas-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohhh……Christmas Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been enjoying the posts for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories<\/a>, but didn’t intend to participate.\u00a0 I was talking to Pat about it, saying that my memories of recent events didn’t seem like real genealogy to me.\u00a0 Pat said,\u00a0 “You love reading old letters and diaries of your relatives.\u00a0 Don’t you think your great-great-grandkids might feel the same way?”\u00a0 Hmm…. yes.\u00a0\u00a0 If enough generations pass it is possible these stories might not be greeted with a chorus of, “Oh no, not that one again.” So, here on Day 13 is my effort for Day 1–the Christmas Tree.<\/p>\n

Being Jewish I came to the Christmas tree rather late in life.\u00a0 After we blended our lives, N and I decided to blend our traditions as well.\u00a0 His family had Christmas trees, so we would have one too.\u00a0 I realize that some readers see the Christmas tree as an element of their Christian faith and may be offended by our secular rendition.\u00a0 It is not my intention to offend anyone; I merely want to tell our family story.<\/p>\n

N grew up in the Pacific Northwest on a large piece of wooded land.\u00a0 Every Christmas he went out and hacked down some scrawny evergreen, brought it into the house, his family decorated it and celebrated.\u00a0 It was simple, everyone was happy. I really should have made note of the simple and happy part, but no, if I was going to do this I was going to throw myself into it.<\/p>\n

\"\"So we got a living Christmas tree.\u00a0 Why should we go out and murder some poor little tree when we could have a living thing to be cherished forever? The fact that we lived in a tiny four room World War II surplus apartment did not deter me. We went to a nursery and picked out a small pine with an enormous root ball wrapped in burlap.\u00a0 Somehow we carted the tree home.\u00a0 Then we found a metal tub large enough to hold the tree.\u00a0 N mentioned many times, mostly when he was trying to move the surprisingly heavy and awkward tree into the house, that bringing a tree into the warm house and then taking it out and planting it meant certain death for the tree. In it came and was deposited in its tub filled with water.<\/p>\n

The tree people had suggested that we keep the house as cool as possible while we had the tree inside; no problem, we couldn’t afford to heat the place anyway.\u00a0 We decorated the little guy and he looked great.\u00a0 There was some grumbling about it being colder inside than it was outside, but we were nurturing a living thing.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we should have examined that old tub more closely. The tub leaked.\u00a0 When we woke up in the morning many gallons of water were soaked into our living room rug and through to what passed for flooring.\u00a0 I have blocked from my memory removing the tree and rug and trying to dry the flooring with a hair drier.\u00a0 N seems to remember these bits quite well.<\/p>\n

So you are no doubt thinking, the little tree went to live outside.\u00a0 Not yet. I am stubborn, it wasn’t Christmas yet and that tree was coming inside.\u00a0\u00a0 The tub was fixed and the tree came back. We celebrated a happy Christmas with our pet tree and kept it until New Years Day<\/p>\n

Then it was time to plant.\u00a0 Here is a useful piece of information for those of you who live in southwestern Ohio and might be planning on a living tree.\u00a0 Start planning in July.\u00a0 To plant a tree you need a large hole.\u00a0 To dig a whole in southwest Ohio in December you need dynamite. You also need a place to dig the hole.\u00a0 We lived in an apartment.\u00a0 Eventually we were able to prevail upon some friends who owned a house.\u00a0 I don’t remember getting the tree over to their house; N says he remembers this part quite well.<\/p>\n

We did dig the hole; there were explosives involved.\u00a0 Some people in our family (N) thought this was the fun part.\u00a0 Other people in our family (me) kept counting everyone’s fingers.\u00a0 Finally our little tree had a home.\"\"<\/p>\n

I would go to visit my tree from time to time that winter rejoicing in its lovely green branches. April came at last to southern Ohio and the world turned green.\u00a0 Most of the world turned green that is.\u00a0 One little part of the world turned brown.\u00a0 My poor little tree had been through too much.\u00a0 We cut him down and returned his remains to the earth from whence he came.<\/p>\n

\"\"Now we go to the lovely Broken Arrow Tree Farm<\/a> here in Connecticut every year and cut a lovely white pine. (I have no connection to these people; they really do have beautiful, well cared for trees.)\u00a0 I no longer have a problem with tree murder.\u00a0 The cutting, schlepping, tying to the roof of the car process usually elicits some grumbling, but in general, this is a fun family activity.\u00a0 The tree is decorated and people are happy.<\/p>\n

I did mention to N recently that we do live on three acres of land now.\u00a0 There are lots of places for a living tree.\u00a0 He threw a string of lights on a yew in the front yard and said, “Look a living tree.”<\/p>\n

Wishing you all :<\/p>\n

A belated Happy Chanukah<\/p>\n

A Merry Christmas<\/p>\n

A happy Kwanzaa<\/p>\n

A delightful Epiphany or Three Kings Day<\/p>\n

A belated good wishes on Eid-al-Adha<\/p>\n

And all of my best wishes for\u00a0 the holidays I’ve forgotten or know nothing about.<\/p>\n

I truly wish each and every one of you all the joys of the season.\u00a0 May your lives be filled with peace and joy and memories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been enjoying the posts for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, but didn’t intend to participate.\u00a0 I was talking to Pat about it, saying that my memories of recent events didn’t seem like real genealogy to me.\u00a0 Pat …<\/p>\n

Ohhh……Christmas Tree<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[124,123,74],"class_list":["post-2086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-advent-calendar-of-christmas-memories","tag-christmas-tree","tag-cole-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions\/2107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}