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It’s getting closer to Christmas time

This is one of a series on getting settled in Hazel Dell. We’re getting closer to Christmas, and it is time to start decorating the house. First we should mount the string of multi coloured lights on the eaves of the house.
Christmas

This is one of a series on getting settled in Hazel Dell.

We’re getting closer to Christmas, and it is time to start decorating the house. First we should mount the string of multi coloured lights on the eaves of the house. I did that once when we lived in Alberta. I painstakingly put up a long string of green, red and blue outdoor lights, only to find that I had put them up in reverse order, as in the plug end was opposite of the plug in on the house. I had to go to town and buy a 50 foot extension cord, which I plugged the string into, and then hid the extension cord inside the eaves, brought it out by the wall plug and plugged it in, and voila, we had lights. Well almost. Some, or almost all of the bulbs did not light up, so I had to go along the string and make sure they were properly screwed into their sockets.

Marion would not let me put an extension ladder up leaning on her new eaves, so we have to forego the outside string of lights. But the solution is in the new solar powered yard lights, which will light up our driveway! Much better, now Santa will have a landing strip for his sleigh! Our chimney is not big enough for the Jolly Old Elf, so he has to come in through the front door, which I will booby trap, because I want to meet him!

The next thing to do is to set up the tree. Marion wants to use the artificial tree that we have ready in the basement. It was decorated years ago, and still is decorated the same way. After displaying the tree over the Christmas holidays, she simply takes a large plastic garbage bad and treads it over the tree, grabs the tree at the base and moves it to the basement. Then the following Christmas she brings it up, removes the garbage bag, and presto there is the tree already fully decorated! However, this year I suggested we go out in our own little private forest and cut down a nice little spruce tree. My suggestion became a motion brought forth at our family council meeting (Marion and me). A lively discussion ensued, the topic being tradition versus convenience. The pros with respect to the artificial tree was the ease of handling an already decorated tree, no pine needles dropping on the floor every time the dog would sniff at it, no need to be hiking through deep snow in bitterly cold weather, etc. I argued that it is part of tradition to go out in the bush and select a nice Christmas tree, to be decorated with our nice ornaments, rather than displaying a poorly made replica!

Marion reminded me of the time in Alberta when I cut a live spruce for Christmas. A nice farmer around the Edson area advertised in the Edmonton newspapers that we could come and cut our own Christmas tree. A friend of mine and I drove out from Edmonton, paid the farmer and went into the described lot trying to find a suitable tree. Most of the small spruces were kind of skinny and didn’t look at all like a Christmas tree. Then we came across a 20 foot tall spruce with a nice looking top part. Great! Let’s cut this one down and cut off the top. Paul Bunyan would have been proud! We chopped the tree down with an axe and it fell to the ground with a big whomp, with the top of the tree just centimeters from the back of my car! We quickly cut off the top of the tree, tied it to the roof of the car and drove away, watching the farmer in the rear view mirror shaking his fist at us!

I mounted the tree stand and put it up in the living room. It thawed out overnight, and the next morning, tiny little tree bugs were crawling all over, so out went the tree. After fumigating the house we purchased a nice artificial spruce tree! OK! A natural tree might have some drawbacks, but I won’t be cutting down a 20 foot tree again! There are some nice Christmas trees in the bush, and a natural tree will smell so nice in the house, it will be like having that pine air freshener that we hang in the truck, only it will be a lot bigger and stand on the floor. She countered with the fact that while dragging it home it would lose a lot of needles and probably look more like a plucked chicken than a tree. “Enough discussion already,” I said, “let’s vote on my motion!” I lost! Can you believe it? The chairperson (Marion) exercised her veto power! I think she might be related to the Grinch!

Many years ago Marion and I travelled through one of the southern states just before Christmas, and in a small southern town we came across a “Nativity Scene” in front of a Lutheran Church that showed great skill and talent. A nice southern belle was standing back and admiring her work. I stopped the car and we got out to look at the nice display as well. However, one small feature bothered us. The three wise men were wearing firemen’s helmets. Totally unable to understand why, we asked the lady about the helmets. She exploded into a rage, yelling at us, “You stupid Canadians never do read the Bible!” She jerked her Bible from her purse and ruffled through some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a passage. Sticking it in our faces she said: “See, it says right here, ‘The three wise men came from afar.’”