Tonight we will discuss Christmas Tip number five, which I learned the hard way: when you go to get your Christmas tree, make sure you have spare blankets with you.
I know you probably think you know where this is going. Seriously, it’s worse than you’re thinking.
read more ↓So Sunday night – after a run, followed by a tea party (no, I’m not kidding, and I’ll link to the story behind this when it goes live tomorrow), followed by fabulous discussion with friends – I got a bee in my bonnet and decided I’d waited long enough to get a Christmas tree. You have to understand that this is something I’ve been waiting for longer than the couple of weeks after Thanksgiving ended, longer than mid-November when I first put up my wreath. See, I haven’t had a real Christmas tree of my very own ever. Yeah, I've had one I helped pick out and put up and decorate with other people's decorations, but it was their tree, not mine. And before that, I hadn’t had a real Christmas tree in… god, I can’t remember how long. I hate plastic trees. Hate them. (Considering my new ban on anger in my life, you have to know that anti-fake ass tree stance is coming from a pretty deep place.) And yet, I was saddled with fake trees for a while, and when I wasn’t I was disappointed to not be a part of the whole tree-buying ritual, which is equally as important as decorating it, if you ask me. Sure, I got to do that last year, but again, this year is different – this year is my tree, in my home, with my decorations, all me, all mine. A milestone, if you will.
Anyway.
I asked someone at the store where the best lot was, and he pointed me in the direction of an independently owned spot, which I like. I’d rather give my money to them than a conglomerate like Target, which gets enough of my Christmas decorating dollars as it is. So I parked and roamed the lot looking for the perfect tree, and was amazed at how picked over it was already, and yet they still had some choice trees. I wanted one that was full (obviously), smelled fantastic (as opposed to the Christmas trees that smell like ass? Lord, it’s been a long day…), taller than me but not so tall that I’d get a nosebleed climbing the ladder to put the topper on, and with nice branches for hanging decorations on (stop laughing – some trees are wimpy and can’t hold lights, let alone a Madonna ornament.)
After at least a half hour of agonizing I picked out the perfect tree, which helpfully had the stand already on. I paid for it and one of the helper dudes took it to my car.
My car.
My poor car, which has been through so much drama over the past year that I just want to hug it and tell it everything will be okay, and that I love it.
“Do you have any blankets?” he asks me.
I look at him like he’s high on fresh pine scent. Why would I have extra blankets for my Christmas tree?
“To lay down on the roof of your car,” he explains. “But because you got the better tree stand, we’re including your tree bag with it, so we can just use that.”
Oh, okay. He lays the plastic tree bag down on the roof of my car and pops the tree on top of it. It’s then that I notice one of the legs of the tree stand – which has three prongs of rebar – is looking like it’s going to scratch the roof if I hit a speed bump at the right clip. As if he were reading my mind the attendant readjusted the plastic to create enough of a buffer, twined my tree to the roof, and sent me on my merry little way.
I drive home a little slower than normal, a little more cautious. Fabulous – no problems. I turn a corner. Speed bump. I hear a little scrape and tell myself everything is fine. And then, I get to my building. I have underground parking, you see, and there’s a height restriction going down the driveway into my parking area. So I do some quick calculations and figure out that there’s nothing to worry about – the tree doesn’t put me over the height limit.
But.
The one lone prong of rebar that’s sticking straight up does.
(This makes me want to cry a little.)
Slowly, I drive down the driveway. And the sound I hear as the upper prong of rebar hits the roof is unsettling, but not as terrifying as the sound I hear when the rebar on the corner of my roof makes an agonizing scrape. It sounded something like what I imagine a crow being put through a juicer would sound like, followed by the wails of a small child who watched the slaughter.
I get to my parking spot. I turn off the car. I pretend that if I don’t look, it means nothing happened. The rebar is bent way back. I cringe. I cut the twine and take my glorious tree off the roof of my car, and with the help of my fabulous neighbor, bend the rebar back so my stand is actually functional. And after I set up my tree, I go back down to the garage to check the damage.
It looks like a child went crazy with some kind of metal cutting tool and scribbled an “M” into my roof. It’s not horrendous, but it’s not great, either. However, I refuse to acknowledge the damage until the new year, when I’ll be more financially capable of hearing how much the damage has cost me without dissolving into tears.
On the plus side, I have a tree!
And I love it, but the part I love most is my fucking kick-ass fiber optic angel… which I have dubbed my Angel of Prosperity. Because I am convinced that she will help me with the mess I made of my poor but trusty car. I owe her a big spa day at the car wash sometime very soon.
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