"Do you want to go with us to get a Christmas tree?" my son asked. I was cold and covered with a blanket to take a nap. My husband was studying, so I told him no.
"Oh, come on, Mom, it will be fun!" Greg insisted. Howard seemed suddenly willing to put down his books, so I got my coat and grumbled at the chilly temperatures.
"We'll just stay in the car," I said as the rest of the family got out to go select and cut a Christmas tree. Again, I was dissuaded. I had to come in to the little shop, my son persisted. With the promise of hot chocolate, I went along.
The reception/gift shop was something of a combination stable and Santa's workshop. The exposed rafters sheltering the snug room with the straw-strewn floor lent a rustic charm to the whole space. Wooden Christmas crafts decorated the walls, and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, emanating off-key strains of the Charlie Brown Christmas song as played by Lucy, sat on the pay counter. Free hot chocolate and cookies awaited tree buyers, trudging cold and shivering into the warmth.
This looked like a good place for the old folks to wait while the others braved the elements and wielded the saw on the trunk of the perfect tree. Revolving family groups came in steadily as we sat on bales of hay and drank our hot chocolate. One little girl was more interested in watching her handfuls of tossed straw flutter down than in the refreshments. The friendly proprietor showed an earnest tot how to peel the paper halfway from his candy cane so he could lick it without getting his hands sticky.
Between groups, my husband engaged the talkative clerk in conversation. Finding out he was a minister, she found common ground to talk of her father's Sunday School class preparation. "Do you study early in the week, or on Saturday?" she asked. Their chat was cut short when our son came in and announced the tree had been procured and went to pay for it.
Feeling festive by this time, everyone wanted to ride around the Christmas "Festival of Angels" lights at the lake. The children ooh-ed and aah-ed at the animated scenes of a runaway gingerbread man, elf-borne packages tossed into Santa's bag, the Nativity, Cinderella, her pumpkin coach and prince, and on and on with vignettes of the old west and other delights all around us in lighted displays. "Oh, you have a Christmas tree!" the attendants at the exit exclaimed of our still-roped tree atop the SUV. They gave us a handful of candy canes as we chorused, "Merry Christmas!" and dropped our donation into the pail.
After the table was cleared of a late supper of quiche and cottage cheese-and-fruit salad whipped up by our daughter-in-law, its surface was covered with fresh-baked and cooled salt-dough ornaments to be painted by the children to go on the waiting tree in the corner. Tomorrow we would string popcorn, but right now I was going to bed!
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