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Faked out by fake green
Contributed by: Connie Massa on 11/29/2007

We finally went fake green a couple of years ago at Christmas.

After years of traipsing through tree lots in subzero temperatures trying to find the right size, shape and priced tree, we broke down and bought our own boxed version of Christmas splendor.

No more wrestling the tree to the top of the car to tie it on with the one-ply string they give you at the lot. No more watering, impaling ourselves on razor sharp needles or hauling it to the recycling lot when it came down. From now on, it was gonna be easy street.

It took both of us to carry the near refrigerator -sized box into the house. Inside, there were about one hundred separate pieces, that when assembled, would transform into a six foot Scotch pine. Each of the limbs were clearly marked with the letters A-M. Some even had double letters. This was going to be so simple it brought tears to my eyes.

After laying all the pieces out, we decided to separate them into their respective letter piles. Each one corresponded to a hole in the trunk. We snapped the trunk together and began sculpting the tree.

Being taller than me, Mark, my husband, started at the top. This seemed reasonable until we got midway down the tree. At that point you could no longer read the letters on the trunk or see the holes because all the branches we put on were in the way. Okay, no harm done. We took it apart and started from the bottom like the directions said.

After it was put together, we stood back to admire our handiwork. It wasn't near as shapely and full as the one in the store. In fact, it was flat. We decided that we had to shape each branch to optimum fullness. That helped immensely.

We then added the lights, ornaments and tinsel to complete our tannenbaum. Minus the natural pine scent, it seemed pretty realistic. I later added the pine scent from a spray can.

After two weeks of enjoyment, it was time to dismantle the tree and pack in back into the box. This is where the true challenge reared its' ugly head. Man has never sucessfully accomplished this feat.

The tree was twice as big as when we took it out of the box. There was no way this thing was going back in there without a fight. Apparently when it was packaged, the tree was vacuum-packed while a sumo wrestler sat on the box.

We smashed and stuffed and stomped each branch into submission as best we could. Even then, only three-quarters of the pieces would fit back into the box. I put the remaining pieces into a garbage bag and stored them on top of it.

We bought this tree because it was cost effective and easy.

The good news is that it will pay for itself in ten years. Now ,if it could only put itself back in the box it would be the perfect tree.









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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Connie Massa

Castle Rock , CO

Connie Massa has posted 23 stories and 3 comments since joining on 10/2/2007. Connie Massa 's average story rating is 5.
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