After Taking Down the Christmas Tree Don't Forget to Check the Oven

Today has been a very industrious day.
And I am not done yet, people.

I have once again learned something very valuable.
Knowledge is just so never ending.

So, I started off my day by making french toast for Honeyman.
Seconded that by mixing up a batch of my 100% whole wheat bread.
Next came time to take down the Christmas tree and the decorations.

So, we are later than most.
But, we buy a live tree and want to get the most out of it.
Hey, it's not July.
We're not that odd.

Kiddo helped me take down the tree.

Mind you, we have a tiny house and the only way to take the tree out of the house is through the kitchen.

The tree was bushy.
It bushed out a ton after we got it home.

So, taking it through the living room doorway into the kitchen was a chore.
Now, it's in the kitchen and there is still not a lot of room.
I knocked over a kitchen chair and left needles over the top of the stove.

Eventually, I got it out the door and drug it down to the burn pile.
Came back in and cleaned up the house.

I thought I got all the needles.
That was just not so.

My bread was ready so I turned on the oven.
When it preheated, I stuck the loaves in and went to start laundry.

I came back in the kitchen and it just smelled horrible.
I thought something was burning.
But, everything on top the stove was fine so I checked the oven.
At first, I didn't notice.

Then, I saw it.
There it was laying innocently beside one of the coils.
It was the tip off of one the the tree branches.

I should have thought to check the inside of the oven.
Silly me.

I am thinking it must have squeezed through the ....
Oh, hell!
I don't have a clue how it got there.

It just didn't want to go out with the rest of the tree.
So, instead it got burned up in the bottom of the oven.

That's my lesson for the day.
Isn't learning great?

O Christmas Tree!

I've been giving some thoughts to Christmas trees lately.

And I think about my earliest memories of a tree.

When I grew up, I didn't know anything about having to buy a tree.
I didn't know there were tree farms.

I only knew my dad would bring one home.

As, I got older, I realized it coincided with second season deer hunting.
Usually last day, to be precise.

When Dad was out scouting for deer, he'd scout for trees too.

And when he found one he thought would work, he put that to memory.
On his way home, he'd stop and cut it down.

I never thought it was odd at all.
Until my husband seemed to think it was funny.

Apparently, people just don't go out in the woods and cut down a tree.
Who knew?
Not me.

They all seemed like very nice trees to me.
Honeyman calls them ugly pines.

What I remember is seeing the big tree in the back of the truck.
I remember it almost reaching the ceiling in the living room.
I remember Dad stringing the lights, the rest of us putting on everything else, but the star.
And than Dad putting the star on top.

Not sure if he did it cause it was his job.
Or, he did it because he was the only person in the house tall enough without standing on a ladder.

As Dad got older the trees gradually got smaller and smaller.
Until they got small enough to be set on top of a table.

I remember my childhood cat, Tabby sitting under the tree like she was a present.
She used to drink out of the stand too.

I remember the year she climbed the tree and it fell over.
It was a big tree that year.
Tabby was a bit rotund.

But, luckily Mom was in the room and it fell just so that she caught the tree and the cat.
Tabby never did try to climb another Christmas tree.

These days, Dad doesn't even go out and get a tree.
He gave up hunting and my sister gave them an artificial tree a few years back.

I wish I had pictures of some of our old trees.
Guess it was just something we never thought about taking at the time.

I will just have to picture it in my mind.

They were just EVERYWHERE!

We used to go to a Christmas tree farm every year.
We walked all over til we found
THE ONE.

Than Honeyman cut it down and we brought it home.

It was fun for the whole family and the tree farm sold all trees for $25 a pop.
Can't beat that.
Sadly, the couple got old, retired and that was that for that special tree farm.

There were a couple others we tried.
But, the one was hard to get into unless you went the weekend after Thanksgiving.
We tried, but they seemed to think we were supposed to hunt the owners down just to get in and buy a tree.

Another one we tried was easy enough to get the tree and pay for it.
The problem was the prices.
The cheapest tree was like $40 and it looked horrible.

It will be forever known as the Charlie Brown tree.

Why would anyone pay that much for a shitty looking tree that looked as if trying to add an ornament would cause it to fall over?

How retarded are people?

But, back to the great tree farm. They had lots of good trees to choose from and we all had to agree on it.

One year we picked a nice tree.

Well, duh.
Like we are gonna pick a bad tree.

Decorated it and everything.

Than it happened.
It was warm in our house and apparently a spider had laid her egg in the tree.
Really, no joke.
Seriously, who is going to check for a spider egg in their tree?

Well, now we know.

Anywho,
It was warm enough in our house that the damn thing hatched.

Just so you know that one egg holds a shitload of spiders.
We had baby spiders EVERYWHERE!

I just wanted to cry.

We had to take it down and throw it out.

Another life lesson:
Sometimes spiders come in on the tree.

You should check.