The Perfect Christmas Tree

by Carol Shaw

image from A Christmas Story

Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree...

Every year, my husband would take us and our 4 little kids tramping through the cold Chicago winter of ice and snow in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
"Bundle up, kids...we're going with Daddy to get our tree."
A few years of this and the kids were asking, "Mom, do we have to go?"
He just had an eye for what he wanted and that was that. Must be the master gardener in him. Our trees looked so perfect that when guests came over during the holidays they would say, "Oh, what a pretty tree! Is it real or artificial?"

Even after we moved to Arizona it was the same thing, only we didn't have to tramp through the snow to find one. One year, he was very busy, working long hours at the family business and really didn't have much time to shop for a tree. After about the second lot we visited, they had a tree all set up as a demo. It was flocked with artificial snow, covered with lights, ornaments and all.
"How much for that one?" says he.
With a much-surprised look on the salesman's face, they decided on a price and off we went with it. Brought it home, set it up, and that was that!

Then we bought our cabin up in Pine, Arizona, which backs up to the Tonto National Forest. The family all gathers there for Christmas each year, all of our kids, their spouses and our grandkids. The first two years we bought live trees, thinking we would help Mother Nature with a few more trees...however, that didn't work out because we were not there to attend to them.

image borrowed from this post at Mother  Earth News blog.

Not wanting to buy a fresh cut tree - because we wanted to go up early to decorate, and then un-decorate after the holidays - he finally relented and we bought our first artificial Christmas tree. Of course, this was no easy task, either. You know how many different artificial trees there are out there.

Well, ours was a beauty. The cabin having high ceilings, we chose a really tall tree. It was so big, in fact, that our granddaughter wrote an essay for school about the humungous Christmas tree her Papa put up at the cabin. As the family got bigger and the room got smaller, he took to pruning the tree. Yes, I said pruning. Got out the old wire snips and did it. He is probably the only person you will ever know  that pruned an artificial tree!!

Last year he decided it was time to purchase a new one, and got a very tall, slim tree. Really turned out lovely, only it got a thumbs-down from the grandkids! They wanted another humungous one!

So guess what? Once again...Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree...

Thanks, Carol, for this wonderful Christmas memory!

Winnie the Witch

by Jeanette Kahwaji

My Aunt Winnie was a riot and a witch (so she thought, she was born October 30th 19??.)  I would never tell her age, she may come back to haunt me. She and my Uncle Alvin, God bless him I don't know how he did it, lived in the house behind us in Chicago. Winnie always had a scary story to tell us kids and she loved every minute of it as we stood there fixated on her every word, eyes wide open, there was always a "got ya!" moment that sent us running and screaming and left her laughing hysterically. 

Aunt Winnie

It was a warm summer evening and our parents had gone out, my sister and cousin were watching me and my siblings. Aunt Winnie came over and told us about the "Witching Hour." If I remember correctly it was around 9 or 10 p.m.; the little garden fairies were going to visit her gardens and she wanted us to see them. We were so excited and anxious we watched the clock counting every minute waiting for 9 o'clock to arrive so we could tip toe over to Aunt Winnie's yard and wait and watch for the garden fairies.

My brother, me (2nd from left),
my two sisters (middle and right),
and our cousins in the backyard.

Well, finally the time had come and my sisters, brother, cousin and I all huddled together squeamishly, anxiously, nervously laughing. We hung onto one another as we headed out across our backyard to Aunt Winnie's yard. There she stood on the back porch waiting with that serious look on her face, ready for the kill. She made sure we all stood in a very specific area of the yard in the grass then the wait began. She told us about the fairies and how at witching hour they will come out of the flowers and dance around the garden but we had to stand very still and quiet. We watched her, listening, not wanting to scare the fairies off as she counted down the minutes. It was dark and quiet, we were in a trance, waiting, waiting, waiting. Just then, she turned on the sprinklers in the grass! We jumped and screamed and ran as she stood on the porch uncontrollably laughing. Damn, she got us again!

 

We ran home soaking wet and had a good laugh ourselves. It made our night and has given us memories to talk about with each other and our children.

Aunt Winnie was definitely my favorite - our favorite - Aunt.

Uncle Alvin and my dad, Chris Shaw