TBT - The Christmas Tree That Will Live in Infamy

Growing up we had several Christmas traditions we all enjoyed.  We always decorated sugar cookies.  We always took a drive at night to check out Christmas lights.  We always read through the Christmas story in Luke 2, with corresponding Christmas songs mixed in.  And we always cut down our own Christmas tree.

Christmas 1998, South Carolina

Cutting down a Christmas tree always made for a good time.  It was never quick.  Between the time to get to a tree farm, park, walk around, each person choosing The Best Tree, then debating about who would get their tree that year, and riding on a hay ride or drinking hot chocolate or doing any of the other extras, we were gone for a few hours.  These memories are generally warm and fuzzy for me and nothing in particular stands out, with the exception of one specific year.

When I was 7 or so, we were living in northern Virginia and went to a tree lot to cut down a tree, as per tradition.  We were disappointed in the selection, though, so my Dad asked one of the employees if there was a certain area we should be looking.  He pointed to a spot a little ways off, and we walked over there to check it out.

Dad soon spotted a beautiful tree - nice and full and perfectly shaped.  None of us stopped to wonder why this tree didn't have a price tag on it.  And none of us wondered why the other good trees had been cut down already but this one hadn't.  And none of us thought it odd that we were quite close to the owner's house.

We cut it down.

And when we brought it to the check-out guy, he quickly let us know why those things should have given us pause.  We'd cut down a landscaping tree.  Not just a tree the owner had grown to have someone use as a landscaping tree at some future date, we'd cut down the owner's landscaping tree from the owner's yard.

Of course we were embarrassed and my Dad apologized and tried to pay more, but the employee simply charged us the normal cost of a tree and recommended we go on our way before his mother saw what had happened.

Well, we didn't quite make it.  And even though I might be the only one who remembers it this way, I'm sure that that woman ran after our car as we drove away, shrieking, "It's a landscaping tree!  IT'S A LANDSCAPING TREE!!"

It was the most beautiful tree we ever had.