Sunday 5 January 2014

Sunday 5th January - A Tale of Four Christmas Trees

So it's back to school tomorrow (except for those schools which are having an inset day?). I'll be on a training day and hopefully this year they will have managed to find a way to heat the hall. Last year it was FREEZING when we arrived and didn't get any warmer all day. This year I am taking a fleecy throw with me, and a thermos of coffee as they also hadn't got the refreshments sorted.

But that's tomorrow, and today has been the day of the Christmas Trees. All four of them. Four?

Well, this year's beauty had to be disassembled;

each strand of lametta gathered up and packed away for next year, the tinsel and baubles removed, the lights untangled...

and the whole tree carried through the house to the garden. As the weather was fine and sunny (that makes a change) it was possible to cut it up into bits and fit it all into the green waste recycling bin, along with last year's tree which was still propped up at the side of the garage, and - what do you know - the trunk of the tree from the year before! I had already managed to cut off all the branches but the trunk had obviously defeated me.

Christmas always seems too short, especially where the tree is concerned - after all the effort of decorating it I'm always sorry to see it go.




















The little knitted (or crochet?) Nativity set, of just Joseph, Mary, the Three Wise Men, and two curiously elongated sheep, is still on the bookshelf, as it is not yet time to put them away. The fireplace looks bare and ordinary without all the delicate little gold ornaments, souvenirs from trips Copenhagen many years ago now.

Now, if you have been keeping count, you will know that we are one Christmas tree adrift. Well, a phone call to my parents elicited the information that they would like help removing their tree from the balcony of their third floor flat. My father reckoned that the simplest way would be to just chuck it overboard (have you read "The Riddle of the Sands" by Erskine Childers? If you have, you may know what I mean. Especially about the Rippingill stove. I know that he has read it, a long time ago.) However, he had modified his plan to "letting it down on a string" - I knew he probably meant rope, but I don't think that he has any. I have an over-active imagination, which presented me with images of the tree getting caught by the wind and stuck in the balcony of - perish the thought - the people next door. Or landing on top of an unexpected and unsuspecting pedestrian. Or getting blown into the lake, and floating about like a guilty conscience. Where's my sense of fun and excitement and adventure?

So we visited the flat and chopped up their tree into two garden rubbish bags, and carried it out. No mess, no fuss, no hassle, no alarums and panics. Easy-peasy. We will empty the bags into our green waste bin later, when it has stopped raining. Because, guess what, it's raining and blowing a good bluster again!








1 comment:

  1. Ah, you're like us - we always keep our nativity set up for a few more weeks. I love that, it prolongs the season for me, especially as we only put our tree up a couple of days before Christmas.

    Maybe you could make a feature of last year's trunk. Change it into a woodcarving - perhaps?

    ReplyDelete