Today, I was thinking about Christmas Trees. You know when someone says "do you remember the gift ..." Well, do you? There are too many gifts over the years of Christmases to remember them all, or even to remember one from each year. I think perhaps you remember the worst, and maybe the best - and that doesn't mean the cheapest or the biggest...
I remember the Christmas Trees more than I do the gifts. But then we had a number of unusual Christmas Trees through the years and each had an unusual story.
We stole a Christmas Tree one year, or maybe two years actually!
Can you believe that? Stealing a Christmas Tree? But we do have an excuse for both of them.
We rode a train half way across the country to have Christmas with my Mom and Dad in 1982... We arrived in Victoria, BC on Dec. 24 which was a Friday.
Now, because my parents lived in a small apartment they had not put up a christmas tree, but we decided that we should have one for the sake of the kids...
So we headed out into the lovely warm evening, no snow or even a hint of snow, to find a Christmas Tree. My Mother said there was a Christmas Tree Seller just a couple blocks away. Well, yes there was an empty lot, with trees, but somewhat like in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" there were only a few trees left.
Myself and my hubby and my sons wandered amoungst the trees looking for one not too big so we could carry it the couple of blocks back to my Mom's place.
Finally we found a little tree that seemed to suit us very well.
Now, for some reason while we were picking out our little tree we never noticed that there was no one else around. We did look and knocked on the door of the little shack where we thought the seller would be, but no one came to take our money.
We walked around and around the little lot of trees, looking for someone, anyone, but well, I guess it was after closing and no one bothered to put up a sign that said CLOSED...
So we debated about what we should do for a few minutes, and not wanting to set a bad example, but wanting a tree very badly and with the encouragement of our 7 year old and 4 year old sons, we decided to STEAL the tree!
Now, kids think this is an amazingly daring adventure and all the way back to the apartment my 7 year old, who was always the kind of kid to make life exciting would yell out, "Here comes the cops, everybody RUN!"
How can you run while dragging a Christmas Tree and at the same time making sure a 4 year old doesn't get left behind or lost or wander out into traffic....
Yep, we stole a Christmas Tree... We never told my Mom that, tho!
Now, it is maybe not seem so bad that we stole this little Christmas Tree, but my Mother and Father worked as caretakers for a CHURCH! and their apartment was part of the CHURCH building... And YOU are reading the first ever telling of this story outside the four of us who did the deed!
