Bluegate blog: Bell ringers

Christmas is swiftly approaching…like a runaway sleigh driven by a drunken fat man in red velvet pajamas and a surely reindeer with deep emotional scars riding shotgun. Oh sure, it’s wonderful this time of year. There’s all that forced holiday glee out there clogging up the daily works with low carb saccharine good cheer. Every shopping mall and discount store around has turned into a financial black hole with the gravitational mass of a government bailout, complete with ill tempered bell ringers just short of their next medication dose. The other day at Safeway I had to sneak around to the little side entrance in order to avoid Darla from the Hell’s Angels Bell Ringers Brigade. I was afraid she might hunt me down in the cereal isle and kill me with a rice crispy treat if I didn’t donate. I had already given my last dollar to her cell mate across the street at the Les Swab tire store. I wasn’t taking a chance on that one. An ill timed blowout during I-5 rush hour traffic could really put a crimp in my shopping schedule. Ol’ Scooter there indicated he might puncture a tire with one of his tongue piercings if so inclined. Frankly I have no idea how he managed to smoke that cigar when he couldn’t even close his lips. He might have given that some thought before having all the hardware installed. I considered offering this bit of observation though only briefly. In the end I opted to spend the holidays outside of the hospital and stuffed a dollar bill into his Bud Light can. It was decorated with tinsel, very festive.

Inside the grocery store my senses were violently assaulted. Apparently some alien life form is Tara forming the planet into one giant cinnamon stick by taking over all the grocery and craft stores on the planet. I believe their plans for world domination are nearly complete. My throat closed up as my eyes began to water and I nearly bumped into Sledge, the inside the door bell ringer. He deflected me onto the poinsettias and Christmas Cds next to the singing Santa’s on Harleys. This worked out great because I needed to pick up a copy of White Snake Christmas and Hip Hop Holidays In The Hood. I tossed them into my cart and proceeded onto the crack in a candy coating isle. I needed to pick up some sugar coated sugar pops in syrup and then some broccoli with a marshmallow topping for dinner. I already had the candy cane shavings for the turkey.
…I don’t know why my teeth hurt right now.

Anyway, I had to hurry up with my shopping if I was going to make it to the tree farm before all the good ones were gone. After some searching I found the end of the checkout line back by the restrooms and employee entrance. It was moving right along though. They had two whole cashiers on duty and only one of them was in training. I heard through the grapevine that the bag boy had gone out to help a customer and hour ago and hadn’t been seen since. That was fine by me. We had a pretty good game of five card stud going on with the deli guys and he cheated anyway. Some one had to wake Mrs. Rosen every time the line moved but other than that it went pretty smoothly. Well, there was that scuffle up by the Stouffers Stuffing but, they patched it up after a few counseling sessions and were on good terms by the time they got to the canned goods isle. Eventually we made it up to the cashier where we exchanged email addresses and said our goodbyes. Bob owes me twenty bucks for that last hand.

I steeled myself to face Darla the belligerent bell ringer on my way out but luckily her parole officer was giving her a break for some personal business. Something about peeing into a cup she said. I slipped out into the untainted cool night air and gave thanks that the cinnamon Tara forming aliens had not made it outside yet. I was anxious to get on to the joyful task of selecting our holiday tree. Apparently it is no longer called a Christmas tree but rather the more ambiguous Holiday Tree. While I am sure this random renaming has its roots in good intentions it is woefully lacking in its grasp on reality. Like it or not it’s Christmas and we aren’t all running around buying Holiday Trees on Memorial day or Halloween. Nor are we opening Labor day presents and sending out Fourth of July cards. Nope. It’s Christmas and no amount of frosty aluminum winter-scaping at the airport is going to erase that. Besides what would we do with all the AC/DC Christmas Cds if that happened?

Having escaped the parking lot with my limbs intact and a cart full of potential New Year’s resolutions I headed back home. The outdoor Christmas decorations had been put up earlier and they glowed cheerily from their position on the front porch-- where they lay in a tangled lump of holiday frustration and despair. Soon the Saint and I were headed off to the non denominational holiday tree sanctuary or as I like to call it, the Christmas Tree Farm!
It is a family owned farm and has been in the family since 1886. The current patriarch is a local horse vet. He enjoys growing specialty hay for the horses. His daughter and her husband handle the tree sales. One summer they planted a cutting flower garden in one of the fields and just put out a cash box on the honor system. This year they tried out pumpkins and they are working on developing their own raspberry/blackberry jam recipe. I have two test jars in my refrigerator.

The Saint and I arrived during daylight hours. It took us about five minutes to pick the tree out but our guy is a talker so by the time we got the tree tied onto the car the sun had been down for over an hour. I am pretty sure that I know more about this guy and his family than I know about my own. I even know where he’s having lunch most days downtown and what he likes for desert at night. I liked him immensely.

Since it was too dark and well past the Saint’s bedtime when we got home we set the mammoth tree outside for the night. The next day the tree would meet its fate.

This is the Saint’s beloved chainsaw with which he will give the tree a fresh cut. He uses this thing at every opportunity and one day I am just certain that I will find him using it to carve a mermaid or maybe a black bear holding a roll of toilet paper. Apparently it is an affliction that strikes people who live in the Northwest near a lot of trees. All you have to do is drive down some country highway to see that it is quite an epidemic. Its worse than heroin apparently and I’m keeping a close eye on him. First sign of fin or fur texture on the firewood and he’s getting an intervention.

Once we got the fresh cut it was time to bring that sweet smelling pretty into the house. This is the part of the process that usually shreds 80% of the needles off leaving the remaining 20% to dump on the floor. Right about this time as we are trying to shove the 6 foot wide base through the single sized door I am wondering just what in the world possess perfectly sane people to drag a needle dropping mass of foliage into the house. I have to rearrange my furniture and empty the vacuum cleaner bag repeatedly while picking needles out of the Berber carpet. Then I have to water it every day because not only is it slowly dying I plan to put fire starting twinkly lights all over the thing and then rig them together with a questionable power strip. I won’t stop there though. No. I’ll drag out boxes of old goofy things that have no other purpose in life than to sit forgotten in the garage all year gathering spiders and moisture. And then I’ll put those little fire starter materials that a boy scout lost in the woods would give his eye teeth for on that tree. A 7+ foot tree sitting in my modest sized living room taking up the space of an entire sofa. A tree covered in knickknacks that I haven’t seen in a year and I will wonder what in world are we thinking? What a ridiculous thing to do…

...and then I will flip that switch and I will know exactly what we were thinking. And I will wonder how we ever managed to live without this beautiful symbol of hope and joy.