Memorable Christmas tree

I grew up in a Cape Cod style house built in 1976. It was a house my parents built, and I suppose that means they CHOSE the harvest gold carpeting for my bedroom, the avocado green carpeting for the bulk of the house, and the dark PLAID carpeting for the boys’ bedrooms (I have three brothers), which seemed to be indoor/outdoor in nature. My decorating sensibilities cringe, but in retrospect, my mother was a genius. The carpeting in the boys’ rooms looked to be in the same condition 18 years after it was put down, after all of the unspeakable things that had happened to it.

When there were six of us at home (2 parents and 4 kids), we had one complete bathroom (and another one upstairs, behind a door, waiting to be finished). By the time there were four of us left at home, my parents managed to finish that bathroom. When brother number 3 went off to college, my parents built a large family room addition, which had built-in bookshelves, a nook for a card table and chairs (at which we did actually play cards, or sometimes type on Dad’s typewriter — whew, I sound old!), a bathroom with shower, and a seriously high ceiling. It was 14 or 15 feet high.

My parents are very responsible people — a pastor and a nurse, responsible with their money, good neighbors, good parents, and all that good stuff. We went out to eat as a family about twice a year, at the Ponderosa, after church, with a coupon. They had an actual budget for each week (for food, for gas, whatever) and paid attention to it. We went to church every Sunday, we had dinner as a family every night, and we returned to the same places for vacation. But every once in a while my dad shows his impulsive side.

Unlike in the South (where I reside now and am happily married to a southerner and have been converted to say “Hey, y’all” instead of “Hi, you guys” — so, no offense, y’all!), where you apparently must purchase your Christmas tree by December 3 or you will end up with some brownish stick that drops needles, where I grew up we used to get our tree between December 15 and December 20. By that time, everyone was home from college and we could all be part of the setup. I didn’t go to pick out the tree the year my parents built the addition, but I remember the looks on my brothers’ faces when they came back with Dad. They were beaming. They were laughing. They were dragging in a 14 and a half foot tree. I have no idea how they got the tree on top of the small car my dad drove. I’m not even sure how they got it through the front door, but they did.

The very top of the tree grazed the ceiling. It took up an area bigger than the large cubicle I sit in at work. God only knows what it cost. They got out 8-foot ladders and still had to kind of toss the lights over the top. We decorated and ran out to the store for more lights and more candycanes and decorated some more. My mother walked in and her eyes got really wide, and she LAUGHED. I was fourteen years old, and I have no idea what presents I opened that year, but that tree was magic.

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