The Christmas Tree.....finale

OK, so how did it all end? Well you will have to read the first two parts of this adventure to understand how we got here.
http://etsthisibelieve.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-tree.html begins the story of picking and cutting down the tree. http://etsthisibelieve.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-treecontinued.html shares the adventure of us actually getting the MONSTER tree inside the house and setting it up. So now, the rest of the story.

The Christmas was a huge success and as always we had lots of fun watching the kids open their presents.  Over the years we have created numerous holiday traditions for our family that began in that little school house. It is amazing to look back and realize that was SO many years ago. Where did the time go? Where did our little babies go?  All grown up now....that is what happens.  We have pictures but it doesn't seem like there were many.  My kids have asked that I continue to post some of their photos, so in the future I will have to write about those adventures as well......there have always been adventures....there undoubtedly will always be.  That is a good thing.

One of the things we have always tried to do pretty quick after Christmas was to begin the clean up process.  You know! Putting all the decorations away and getting life back to the normalcy of ...well ...I guess the daily grind.  Why did we always do that? I am not sure.....wouldn't it be great for the Christmas spirit to last just a bit longer?  Apparently not! My wife has been the scrooge of Christmas all of these years....now don't take that wrong.  She loves Christmas, and loves watching the kids and loves everything about it. However, she is a bit of a slave driver from time to time. You see, when it is over.....its OVER....no lingering, no procrastinating, not dilly dally around...MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT! (This could be one of my favorite traits about her...otherwise I might sit around and do nothing) Yes, she is the taskmaster! But that is okay.....Christmas is over so.....NEXT!

Next, was always getting the house back to normal before life started back.....meaning New Years Day....all over. THAT became our next family tradition. Packing it all away.  Back then we didn't have as many ornaments or decorations or stars or lights or much else for that matter.....but this year we had the TREE to end all trees! And what happens to most LIVE trees after they have been in your house for a while? That's right....THEY GET DEAD! and drop all their needles. We could have created a small mulch bed underneath this tree. By this time, you just look at the tree wrong and needles would fall off.  I was just imagining how much of a struggle it would be to get it back out of the door again and what a mess we were going to create.

And then it HIT ME.....I had a brilliant idea of how to get the tree out neat and clean. (okay so I thought it was a bright idea at the time) If you look in the corner of the house, we had a wood burning stove....yep you got it.  I was going to cut up the tree in small bits and burn up! This was going to be awesome.

A few pointers one should realize about this process: (that now is engraved in to my head)

1. Wood burning stoves are small...means you have to cut everything up pretty small to get it in the door.
2. PINE is not a great thing to burn in a stove....yes it burns quickly, but apparently the sap is a very bad mess and requires flue cleaning.....not just chimney cleaning in our case.
3. Needles still fall on the floor as you are hacking at the tree.
4. A 13 foot tall tree produces a lot of branches....therefore a lot of fire wood...therefore a lot of heat.
5. It is best, that the day you pick to burn your Christmas tree doesn't happen to turn out to be the hottest day of the winter....yep, I think it was up to the low 70s in Pennsylvania that day....OUTSIDE.

So, branch after branch I cut (dismember: my kids thought it was sacriligious o be cutting the tree....it was like killing Santa or something and they thought I HAD to be doing something illegal) and place the branches (the body parts) in the stove.....and hotter and hotter it got in that house.  I kid you not, it had to be nearly 100 degrees inside that day. Blazing hot sauna type of heat!  We had always put a small black kettle on the top of the stove with water and potpourri in it.  It was great, created beautiful smells while the fire was burning.....however today.....that pot was boiling over......seriously BOILING OVER.  It was a rolling boil on the top of the wood burning stove.  We could have cooked a soup on top of the fireplace!

Little by little the tree disappeared.  Remember I had tied it to the top? Well, it is pretty funny looking to have a tree (near naked except for the top 6 feet that I couldn't reach except with a ladder) swinging....yes swinging from its tether at the ceiling. All done....the rest of the day we went outside to play ...... And cool off! Truthfully, I didnt finish cutting the tree up.  I was too tired and too sweaty to deal with it anymore.  After all I had made a huge HOT mess regardless.  I took the rest of the tree and threw it down in the woods (like a dead body being hidden and never discovered by the authorities) and called it a day.

Memories my friends...make them and never forget them. They are the special moments in our lives.
(The names and places in this story have been changed to protect the innocent....are you kidding? Nope it was me guilty as charged! Merry Christmas my friends.)