Lead Tainted Memories of Christmas

Dear Christmas Tree Huggers:

With the weather feeling more like April than December, it’s a little harder to get into the Christmas spirit, but calendars are unrelenting, so for inspiration I’ll dig back into the past hoping to find that little thread that will amusingly unravel that ugly Christmas sweater of memory.

When I was little, about this time of year the family would head down to Omaha’s Old Market looking for our annual tree. That area of downtown Omaha is now filled with trendy shops and high-end restaurants, but back then it was a dilapidated wholesale produce market where tree sellers would unstrap their wares priced by the foot. Of course, most of us kids wanted the tallest tree possible. Knowing our living room ceiling was about nine feet, subtracting for the tree topper which looked a little like an eight-inch satellite with a silver spire, and adding about six inches to the bottom for the tree stand, we figured an eight and a half foot tree would max out the height, leaving a little space for Dad to saw a fresh cut for the trunk to absorb sugar water. Dad, on the other hand, was all about value, which of course meant short. Reaching his gloved hand into the stack of trees and pulling out a modest full five-footer inspired howling protests from us kids.

My father was no stranger to negotiations, so he would grab a taller tree with a corkscrew trunk and very few branches and inquire as to how much of a discount was available for such a defective freak of nature. Mom would look with a bit of horror, since a few bushels of lead tinsel would be required to fill the obvious voids. The childhood trauma of tinsel placement is to this day a topic of conversation worthy of a skilled therapist. But height was the only aesthetic that mattered to my siblings and me, and Dad knew the knurlier the tree, the greater the potential for haggling. Tree negotiations also took time; prices became more buyer-friendly the more the outdoor temperature plummeted. Just a few yards away was a temporary shelter with an electrical code-defying space heater, to which the salesman could retreat as soon as a tree was sold to this ragtag family of seven. Dad had the ability to stand in sub-zero darkness as if he had all night, and he could posture a believable willingness to head home without a tree if the prices were considered unreasonable. One year, to our collective terror, Dad suggested we come back on December 27 for a free tree and celebrate Christmas on New Year’s Eve. Later he explained he was only trying to improve his negotiating advantage.

Once the tree was selected and strapped to the roof of the Mercury Voyager, we piled into the station wagon to drive home and see our prized Tannenbaum in full light. Dad was confident he could compensate for the trunk’s lean with several shims and some fishing line, but always pointed out how we got a full eight-foot spruce for a four-foot price. Besides, too many branches would have left insufficient space for ornaments and lights—the lush and extravagant Scotch Pines were just too hard to decorate. 

Exhausted, we’d schlep the evergreen onto the enclosed back porch, heading inside to warm up our tree-sap-stained hands. The newly acquired tree would need to stay in a bucket of water until the bottom stump could be trimmed and the stand screwed into the trunk. To add to the delay, it seems every year the lights had been put away in a snarl, and we would begin the long process of figuring out which bulbs needed replacing. Originally the strands were multi-colored, but several years back my dad found a huge box of single-color replacement bulbs at a discount, so one by one the light strings morphed into a monochromatic blue. It was years later I figured out the replacement bulbs were intended for the celebration of Chanukah. Once stabilized and decorated, the Christian Chanukah bush required vigilant fire prevention attention and vacuum cleaner duty until the near needleless limbs exited the house, having served their festive purpose.

We have an artificial tree now—our house at one time had cats found to be far too compatible with live (recently executed) trees. I claim to not like artificial trees, but that insistence arises from faulty memory that filters only a romanticized version of Christmas past.

Still amazed that nobody scolded me for chewing lead tinsel like gum, I remain slightly less smart than I could have been, 

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor