When my mother-in-law first moved up here to Idaho, she had dreams of a starting up a wonderful, old-fashioned Christmas tradition of going out into the woods and cutting down a Christmas tree.
Thomas was 4, Viola, 7 and my handicapped brother-in-law came along for the fun and joy. The day was unseasonably warm...which we actually thought at first would be a good thing.
First we had to reconcile the topo map from the forest service to real-life...which we did fairly accurately.
Then to find the perfect trees...yes, two; one for our home, one for the folk's.
We headed out a likely old forest service road...on foot of course. Naturally, the snow was about three feet deep...Thomas was maybe three and a half feet tall.
It wasn't long before both kids were sitting in the truck crying because they were wet and cold. Yes, they were well-fitted with snow-suits and boots, but, because the day was so warm, the snow was really wet...and very deep.
Finally, we found two pine trees that were nicely shaped and small. Out comes the chain saws. By this time my brother-in-law decided that he had had enough and was sitting back in the truck with the kids who had dried up enough to be warm...but bored. They didn't want to go back out into the wet snow...and so they "played" in the truck. (All parents will shudder with horror at this point, I'm sure.)
I was going back and forth between the truck and the tree slayers. Taking down pine trees on snowy, slippery slopes isn't as easy as it sounds, and it doesn't sound all that easy in the first place. Steve and his dad were getting....grumpy.
Meanwhile, my m-i-l...who I'm sure MUST have been a cheerleader as a young lass, was insisting to each and all that we were indeed having a WONDERFUL time. (She is especially gifted with encouragement.)
Trees are down at last and into the back of the truck...which looked very, very, VERY full of ...tree. (I began to have a bad feeling when I saw the trees in the truck.)
We drove the 1.5 mile back home and unloaded our tree. Steve and his dad started to bring it into the house.
You know...little trees that are growing in a forest besides fully grown trees can be much larger than you think.
They had to sever the tree approximately in half before it would fit the door. In and out a few more times and finally the tree fit into the space between floor and ceiling. The only thing was, all the branches that made the tree look so thick and nice were now laying out in the yard. The remainder of the tree...the part in the house, was pathetically skimpy.
Plus, this was a pine tree...the needles were 3 inches long and as sharp as any surgical instrument.
Normally, decorating the tree is a family event. Each of the kids have their own ornaments, plus what both Steve and I have collected over the years...we have eggnog on hand, play Christmas music.
But, after his day of being tree slayer, all Steve was good for was kicking back in the recliner with some Ibuprofin. The kids, after valiantly trying to attach their ornaments without drawing blood on the needles gave up. I put on my hay-stacking clothes and went ahead and finished decorating it.
It looked...okay. Charlie Brown and all that.
By now, the newly slayed tree...that had set in gloriously frozen woodland splendor...was warming up. This tree...which had it's bottom branches all shorn off...lot's of wounds...was now oozing sap in the warmth of the house.
I threw a plastic bag over the tree skirt.
In come the cats. Not the two culprits of the OP...but our eldest two...BooBoo and Salem back in their frisky youth.
Salem, the more timid of all the cats, took a swipe at an ornament and had his paw pierced by a pine needle. He jumped back about 15 feet. He tried a few more times to attack the tree, but was poked, stabbed and impaled each time. From that day forward, he has been the "good" cat with the trees, content to sit under them, but not touch.
BooBoo was and is far more intrepid. He was determined that as a cat, feline pride would not allow him to be intimidated by a tree. Trees were created by God for cats to climb and this tree would fulfill it's God given role. So, even though he got stabbed a few times for his efforts...he did indeed climb that tree.
Now, pine trees of this sort...especially as young as this one was...are very supple. The cat didn't knock the tree over...it just sort of started bending, and bending and bending, until the cat was almost touching the floor even though he was on the upper branches. He decided that was enough and went to hop off.
However, there was all this tree sap on his paws. Very warm, sticky tree sap.
The cat was stuck to the tree.
I still remember the look of panic in his eyes. I went to rescue him and managed to get him off...forgetting one of the primary laws of physics...that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Sticky cat went one way...tree and ornaments went the other. The ornaments went flying and I got slapped, stabbed and scratched in the back lash.
We now have an artificial tree.
I can see why you would want a fake tree.
