My mother was a life long fan of the Christmas season, and when we were kids she would insist on putting up a tree well before Thanksgiving. We lived in rural North Carolina, with an extensive pine forest just behind our house. Trees were free for the taking, and she would send us three boys off to do the taking. It was free, after all, not the $100 you might pay these days. Anyway, up the tree would go sometime in November, as early as she could persuade my father to permit it, and often so early that by early December the tree was so dry it would have to be replaced. Or hazard a fire. I would guess that my mother might well have won the Tannenbaum Toss some years, when the replacement might have happened still in November. As Archie Bunker put it "Those were the days".
My mom tells stories of how they didn't have electric strings of lights in her North Dakota youth and they used CANDLES. Surprised she lived to tell the tale.
My ex-husband used to make Christmas a pretty stressful holiday, so I was always happy to get the tree down and be done with it. I started having a contest with myself. My earliest was 7:34 AM on December 26, 2000. We have happier times now so I will be taking mine down on the 27th this year!
Love the Tannenbaum Toss contest…and all that it implies. The 3AM toppling Christmas tree can only be rivaled by the prematurely dried-out tree for Christmas season “bummers”…(having had both hapopen in a previous life). However the “Tannenbaum Topper” of experiences came when gathering gifts from under the tree for heading out to grandma’s on Christmas morning, only to discover the leaking water reservoir beneath the tree—soaked up in the carpet like a proverbial sponge. Had it been only one reservoir full, it could’ve been tolerable…but apparently this thing had been leaking for quite some time (“Crimony that tree is thirsty.” Remarked the kids as they rotated duty to fill the vessel🤦🏻♂️)….the flood mitigation efforts are a story for another time.
My mother was a life long fan of the Christmas season, and when we were kids she would insist on putting up a tree well before Thanksgiving. We lived in rural North Carolina, with an extensive pine forest just behind our house. Trees were free for the taking, and she would send us three boys off to do the taking. It was free, after all, not the $100 you might pay these days. Anyway, up the tree would go sometime in November, as early as she could persuade my father to permit it, and often so early that by early December the tree was so dry it would have to be replaced. Or hazard a fire. I would guess that my mother might well have won the Tannenbaum Toss some years, when the replacement might have happened still in November. As Archie Bunker put it "Those were the days".
My mom tells stories of how they didn't have electric strings of lights in her North Dakota youth and they used CANDLES. Surprised she lived to tell the tale.
Before Christmas? That’s faster than I ever have.
My ex-husband used to make Christmas a pretty stressful holiday, so I was always happy to get the tree down and be done with it. I started having a contest with myself. My earliest was 7:34 AM on December 26, 2000. We have happier times now so I will be taking mine down on the 27th this year!
Thanks, Tori.
We'll take ours down too on the 27th. Of April.
I am a PK. When I was a kid, our tree was put up when Advent started, and stayed up until Epiphany. We observe the same.
That's very traditional and very impressive, Beth. This year that would be Nov. 30 to Jan. 6.
Love the Tannenbaum Toss contest…and all that it implies. The 3AM toppling Christmas tree can only be rivaled by the prematurely dried-out tree for Christmas season “bummers”…(having had both hapopen in a previous life). However the “Tannenbaum Topper” of experiences came when gathering gifts from under the tree for heading out to grandma’s on Christmas morning, only to discover the leaking water reservoir beneath the tree—soaked up in the carpet like a proverbial sponge. Had it been only one reservoir full, it could’ve been tolerable…but apparently this thing had been leaking for quite some time (“Crimony that tree is thirsty.” Remarked the kids as they rotated duty to fill the vessel🤦🏻♂️)….the flood mitigation efforts are a story for another time.
When our tree crashed the other night, my first thought was all that water in the stand. It's groundwater now.