Holiday Road: Tree Hunting

The Crawford bunch are normally a reserved bunch. This is far from my family, where no matter if it's Campbells or Duffys, chances are strong that you will find some alcohol, loud voices and some occasional picking on each other. You know, because we all love each other.

But my lady's family are the reliable ones, at least in terms of not drinking heavily and generally being goofballs. My side of the family has that covered. So behold my shock when I experienced the insanity of what seemed like a simple task ... getting a Christmas tree.

Go to a church parking lot or yard and buy a tree from Boy Scouts or something? Oh hell no. Her family drives damn near an hour to one of their secluded farms outside Murray and wanders aimlessly around a forest of trees to find the perfect one for her grandparent's house. Let me go ahead and reinforce a few things. There were around 11 of us. In four cars. It was 11 degrees outside. We were wandering around this forest. It was nuts.

Luckily, a tree was found. Or, as her grandfather aptly put, "We can cut this one down, or you all can wander around for another hour trying to find one and we'll end up back here to cut this one down." Thanks grandpa, for summing up everyone's opinions. So we cut the tree down with a saw, luckily not only with our hands. All the while, some of the cousins decided to make like spider monkeys and scale every tree they came across. Not to be taught a lesson, their father joined in. Normally reserved and rational, get them in an open setting and apparently all reason goes out the window. I'm just glad no one was impaled.

This scene from the best Christmas movie ever best sums up the experience, and is more like a documentary, the more I look back.