Xmas Trees of the Past

[beachguy498]

Xmas trees were always an event in my family when I was growing up... not because they looked so good.

My dad would go out on Xmas Eve and buy a tree at a local tree lot. By then, the pickins were slim and you didn't get much for your $5 maximum. Charlie Brown's tree looked far better.

So we would set the tree up as soon as we got home. My dad would trim the bottom, maybe the top.. and almost certainly clip branches from one side, drill holes elsewhere and install the branches to even the tree out. On Xmas day, my friends would come over to see the tree, just to see if it eclipsed the tree of the previous year.

Of course the tree would be periously unbalanced. One year, someone walking a little too heavily across the floor could cause it to fall. Another year, 2 cats had a fight in it and it came crashing down at 4 AM. The remedy was to nail the stand to the floor or tether it with twine to a picture hook set in the wall.

From 1974 on, me and my brother bought the trees. We'd go with my dad, one of us would go find a real good tree, the other kept him busy. At the end, we'd grab the $5 out of his hand and kick in the rest.

Rob

[ChickenPauk]

Xmas trees were always an event in my family when I was growing up... not because they looked so good.

My dad would go out on Xmas Eve and buy a tree at a local tree lot. By then, the pickins were slim and you didn't get much for your $5 maximum. Charlie Brown's tree looked far better.

So we would set the tree up as soon as we got home. My dad would trim the bottom, maybe the top.. and almost certainly clip branches from one side, drill holes elsewhere and install the branches to even the tree out. On Xmas day, my friends would come over to see the tree, just to see if it eclipsed the tree of the previous year.

Of course the tree would be periously unbalanced. One year, someone walking a little too heavily across the floor could cause it to fall. Another year, 2 cats had a fight in it and it came crashing down at 4 AM. The remedy was to nail the stand to the floor or tether it with twine to a picture hook set in the wall.

From 1974 on, me and my brother bought the trees. We'd go with my dad, one of us would go find a real good tree, the other kept him busy. At the end, we'd grab the $5 out of his hand and kick in the rest.

Rob

LOL - it's stuff like this that makes the holiday season for me !!

[Frnkd]

Great story op. I just want to add to the part of the animals in the tree with my own one. One year my parrot flew into our tree....had to take the whole thing apart to get this bird!!!!.....still a story I share.

[dbx]

Love it!

Not so much a tree story, as it was the stand, one year. I decided we needed a new stand after years of great service from a very old one. Went to HD and finally bought one that was a "simple, step & lock-in" kinda deal. Man, that tree fell so many times that I lost count! I ended up "pinning" the top (where the star would go) to the ceiling with fishing line and a "tack". Even then...the damn thing fell a few more times before I found the right positioning to prevent this. I returned the stand right after Christmas, shared my disdain for it....and was promptly reimbursed.

Our trees were always nice, but we still made sport of pointing out flaws in it, directing ball-busting to whichever male (me & 2 sons) insisted it "was the one"

[SP1966]

One year I pissed the wife off (I've actually done that more than just that one year...) and she threw a phonebook at me. Of course she throws like a girl and took the tree out!!

[PapaBunny]

Great story OP!