First off,
Since I came so dangerously close to missing saying “Happy Birthday” to my mom (I actually DID miss it by 5 minutes; called and woke her up at about 12:05am, which was a dubious choice (she may have valued her sleep more than a call from me!)) I figured I’d take a minute to do that here. So, Happy Birthday Mom!
My mom is pretty much the greatest mom anyone ever had. I would back that up with Scientific research, but anyone who meets her would realize there’s no real need. And as awesome a mom as she is, she’s an even awesomer grandmother (sorry, “grammy”). Which creates this feedback loop in which her awesomeness as a grammy reinforces her awesomeness to me as a mom, which reinforces her awesomeness as a grammy, which reinforces…
So thanks mom, we love you!
The Tree
There is a Christmas tree unfurling in our living room right now (no, not a sad one like the picture to the left; a real 6.5-foot bushy tree… more about the sad tree in just a moment). It will get decorated tomorrow. This might be a bit close to Christmas for some people, but for meit’s just about right. I always remembered putting the tree up on or around my mom’s birthday. Feels about right.
We had every intention of getting a tree, and Alie informed me that they had a few small trees at Home Depot that would probably make for a passable and modest Christmas. We had to go to the Home Depot anyhow, so we passed by the trees and headed directly in, taking note only of the price (cheap… $10). Did our shopping, and informed the cashier that we would be paying for a tree as well.
Her apparent surprise at that idea should have been a warning sign.
We got outside and “selected” a tree. “Gee,” I said, “it’s pretty… small….”
“Yeah,” Alex said, “but it’ll be OK for this year.” As we took the short walk back to the car, I think I muttered a few more times, “Man… pretty small….”
Twirling our tree like a baton, I opened the wagon up, eyeballed it for a moment, and with my genetically superior 3D spatial sense, confidently proclaimed, “We won’t even need to put the rear seat down.” And proved my point by way of putting the tree into JUST THE WAGON AREA!
“Are you SERIOUS?” she asked.
“Yup.”
We both stood there for a few silent moments, thinking to ourselves, “That is a really frickin’ sad looking tree.” To that thought, I also internally added similar thoughts like, “I think we’ll be able to get half a string of lights and 5 decorations on it” and “I might be able to use this as a replacement toilet brush instead.”
With what probably amounted to defeated resignation (better this tree than no tree), I was commanded by my boss (not Cole… the other boss) to get rolling to the next destination, which was Canadian Tire. As we pulled into the Canadian Tire lot, we could see a guy JUST closing up a tree lot that had been put together in the parking lot. Man, those were some nice trees.
“Want to get a real tree?” I asked, not 100% sure if the lot was actually closed.
“YES!” she said. As I knew she would. As it turned out, the lot WAS closed, but the idea was there. We were going to get a real tree after all. It would just be a matter of finding one (lots are everywhere; I wasn’t worried just ’cause the Canadian Tire one was closed). So, we finished up at Canadian Tire and were on our way.
But what about the $10 tree from Home Depot? The one still in the small storage area of the wagon….?
Imagine if you will: Alex, walking up to the returns counter at Home Depot and asking, “Is it OK to return a… tree…?” 
Imagine also the teller’s synapses firing as she decided how to respond… well, might as well follow the training manual, right?…
“What is the reason for the return?” she apparently asked.
“Size” said Alex.
–
To make a long story shorter, we drove to another local tree lot, but it was too expensive. So today she went out and got a rather plump tree that has a perfectly-balanced presence in our living room.
–
A bit of a thought regarding the whole tree thing: as we were driving home from the failed tree purchase excursion, I wondered why we hadn’t learned our lesson from the famous Charlie Brown Christmas special? I can say that I did not learn it! I wanted the new non-pathetic tree just as much as my wife did. 
Charlie Brown may have felt sad for the tree (he relates to it), but I felt little to no remorse returning it.
What would you do? Keep the patheto-sad tree, or swallow your pride and walk up to the returns counter?
