We Bought a Tree

While this is primarily the story of how we bought a Christmas tree, I wanted to sneak in the shorter stories of our other recent “big” purchases as a family, just because I like telling the stories.

A Grill

We’d never owned a grill during our seven years of marriage. Well, I take that back. We had a George Foreman for the first five years, something Justin already owned when we met. It was our go-to method of cooking chicken to put on salads, among other things, before we got our sous vide. It didn’t survive the We’re Moving Purge of 2018. Anyway, no outdoor grilling units to our name–until now! Yay! Future “barbecue” parties at our house (once those are a thing again) may possibly be true barbecues with the barbecue grill and everything. Justin had his eye on a particular grill, and it went on sale on Cyber Monday, so we said “Merry Christmas!” to each other, and that was that. So far, we’ve done burgers and pulled pork to smokey, delicious success. I have a feeling we’ll be smoking and grilling all kinds of wonderful things in the coming year. Stay tuned!

A Fridge

The plan, all along, had been to get a new fridge and move the existing one to the garage for milk, butter, brisket, pumpkin, etc, overflow. Then I found out I really dislike the functionality of the existing fridge, so during one of the 3-day weekend sales, we went ahead and went for the new one. Getting the old one out was a doozy. Justin swore we would never buy a partially/previously remodeled home again. Something about the cabinets’ corners not being squared and the countertops jutting out at the corner. Another reason to hate tile countertops: they may or may not be flush with one another at the edges. Not to mention the piece of drywall that came off after much push and shove, stuck to the side of the fridge by paint. Um, yikes. But the new fridge is gleaming and chilling, so that little saga is over for now. (Maybe there will be new quartz countertops in my not-so-distant future. I guess we’ll see!)

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A Christmas Tree

This is a slightly more interesting story. It starts out similarly: We’d never owned a full-size Christmas tree during our seven years of marriage. We bought a tiny little tree, maybe 2.5 feet tall, for our first Christmas together. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment at the time, in which our couch and TV took up literally the entire living room. There was room for a small tree, though, on the “bar” level of the kitchen countertop. We picked out a single set of tiny coordinating ornaments, a single strand of lights, and a very-sparkly coordinating star to go on top. We even got a tiny tree skirt for it. We set our gifts to one another beside the tree on the countertop; as there was very little room underneath the tree.

It was tiny, but it was just the right size for just us two, in our apartment, and again for just us three, a couple years later, when Miryam was a baby, and we were still in an apartment. The following Christmas, we were living at my parents’ house, so our little tree stayed in the storage unit.

The next year, in October, we bought our first house. We had a big living room. But we didn’t buy a big Christmas tree. I’m not even sure why we didn’t, now. At the time, we thought we would be in that house for “a few years.” But we managed with our little tree, atop the kids’ bookshelf in a corner. Maybe we purposely wanted to keep it out of newly-one-year-old Luke’s reach. His baby nickname was Baby of Destruction. Maybe we thought he would try to climb a big tree and destroy it or hurt himself. Anyway, we rationalized ourselves out of making that purchase that year.

Side story: I did home-make us some new stockings that year, though. I had some tiny and I mean tiny stockings from childhood that we’d used previously, but there were only three of them. My mom had enough stockings for everybody when we lived with her and Luke was a newborn. But this year, I had my very own mantle, and I had four people in my family. We went to Hobby Lobby. Most of the stockings were both inexpensive and hideous. Just…tacky or gaudy or things I thought we’d never be able to match with in the future if/when we added more kids to the family. Right there in the stockings aisle, Justin suggested, “I bet you could make stockings.”

My response was, “I don’t know how to knit!” Internally I added, “And even if I did, that sounds like SO MUCH WORK.”

But he insisted that there must be patterns out there to crochet Christmas stockings, which is the only needle art form I do. So I hopped on Pinterest from my phone. To my surprise, there were, indeed, many options for crocheting stockings, and they were decidedly more attractive than the selection at Hobby Lobby. We made our way to the yarn aisle. I couldn’t make a decision on the spot which pattern to follow, so I just picked out off-white and dark red and green and hoped it would be enough in matching dye lots to make the four I needed that year plus any more I might need to make in the future. I went home, settled on a pattern, and set to work. I got hand cramps, and I questioned myself a few times, and I started over a few times, too, but I finished them with a few days to spare! Last year, I made another one for Cecily, which I finished on Christmas Eve, after the kids were already in bed. I am not known for submitting projects much before they are due. But I can say we have homemade stockings, and I quite enjoy their colors, and they are just the right level of rustic-looking for my taste.

But back to the Christmas tree. By the following year, we had moved back to Texas, so it turned out we saved ourselves from moving a big Christmas tree (and its trimmings) that time. We moved in September—plenty of time to watch for a sale and get a nice tree. Our new living room was even bigger, with high, vaulted ceilings, and it practically begged for a big tree. Luckily for us, someone we know had inherited a fairly large tree from a neighbor (or something like that), and was putting it up in her home just that year, but offered it to us for the next year, if we wanted it and would come get it, because she didn’t want to bother with storing it and putting it up year after year. We have a deal! We will use the tiny tree for one more year. We can wait on it, for a free hand-me-down. I don’t mind that at all!

Except…… 

She decided that actually she wanted to keep that tree for herself indefinitely after all. I’m not blaming her, just explaining why we were still holding out on investing in a big tree. By the next year (last year), we were already having the back-and-forth with Justin’s company about moving again, and around Christmas was one of the times when we were pretty sure that we would be moving, so we decided to put off the big tree purchase again, because we didn’t know how tall our ceilings would be by next year (this year) and figured we would just save ourselves the trouble of moving a big tree, again.

So here we are in 2020. It was early November. Christmas trees were on sale at all the stores, and I was ready. I casually (but hopefully) brought up the sales to Justin. Perhaps we could take a spin around town, stop in at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s, see what we liked on display, and go from there? He agreed. Woo!

We settled on one we wanted, which wasn’t in stock at the store, so we ordered it online. Shipping was free. ✅ It wasn’t Amazon prime, but it’s early November, and we had a track record of focusing on Advent and then putting up the little tree on Christmas Eve, so there was plenty of time for “standard shipping” to be just fine. About ten days later, I checked the shipping update, and it was supposed to be delivered that day by 9pm. Woo!

But……

We were up watching a movie, waiting for some shuffling on our doorstep. None. Checked the porch before heading to bed. Nothing. All right, perhaps it’s been delayed. The next day, when I checked the shipment status, it had changed to “no scheduled delivery date; check back later for updates.” So I did that every few days. For two weeks. And the message never changed. It seemed to be stuck in the shipping hub near us. My guess was that it got scanned but never actually placed onto the right truck to get to our house, and who knows where it was, exactly.

Not a huge deal. I called UPS. It turns out there is no way to speak to a human being at UPS over the phone. The automated line suggested I contact the shipper. *sigh*

I called Michael’s, explained what was going on, and asked for them to contact UPS to figure out if the tree was lost or what. I must have misunderstood the gal I was speaking with. I thought she was going to have someone contact UPS for an update, and then contact me back. She had asked for my phone number and email address at the beginning of that call. I thought that seemed reasonable. But I wasn’t contacted.

I called Michael’s again. I explained my situation and my theory again. I explicitly requested that they call UPS and then get back to me. This gal explicitly said she would talk to her supervisor and notify the department that handles shipping, to handle it, and that someone would contact me back within 24 hours. I thought that seemed reasonable. But I wasn’t contacted.

I called Michael’s a third time. This time I convinced my girl to let me talk with her supervisor. I could tell she was doing everything in her power—she offered me a refund and the faint hope that the tree might still get delivered anyway…but I didn’t want a refund, I wanted a tree! She said her supervisor was in a meeting; could I wait on hold until she could get ahold of her to get permission to connect me? Sure thing! I have all day.

Finally I spoke with Miss Jackie. She also tried to get me to take the refund, mostly because her supervisors recommended that course of action over sending replacement items that might just get delayed or lost again, landing us all back in the same spot. I assured her that I would rather take that chance than for sure be treeless again this year. Most of the other trees we liked a month ago are out of stock now. Most of trees we liked were never in stock at the store, so we’re going to be facing a shipping situation either way—well, that or we were going to “settle” for some tree, which I wasn’t feeling up to after seven years of anticipation. She filed for the replacement shipment. My hopes were up.

Yes, it’s the busiest shipping season of the year, but we have all the way till Christmas Eve as far as I am concerned! Fingers crossed.

There is an expected delivery date! There is a delay. The next day there is a new expected delivery date, which seems awfully promising compared to “no scheduled delivery date; check back later for updates.” And then guess what. A big box from UPS, with Michael’s as the return address, shows up on my doorstep a day earlier than newly expected. Oh my gosh, I think we have a tree! Less than two weeks before Christmas, but before Christmas nonetheless.

Two of my sisters had early gifted me a set of Christmas ornaments with all my kids’ names on them, knowing that I was planning on upgrading to a big tree this year. The little tree was already overflowing with gifted and homemade (by Miryam, at preschool) ornaments over the last few years. I knew kindergarten and Luke’s preschool would likely send home new ones this year, too. Besides wanting a big Christmas tree in my domestic sphere, on a practical level, I was feeling like we actually kind of needed one, this year. I’m so thrilled it came through, even with all the drama! Next, I got to shop for a tree skirt, lights, and a star. The pickings were a bit slim, being so close to “the big day,” but hey, that made my decision-making easier.

Truly, at the end of a crazy year like 2020–crazy both personally and globally—a big, full, fully decorated Christmas tree is just the note to end on. The wonder of the miracle of God coming to us as a baby at Christmas can be emphasized by a colorfully-glowing, shimmering-sparkling, eye-catching Christmas tree taking up half of the living room. It’s ironic that we finally have this big tree, in our smallest living room (in a house) yet, but it’s been such a long time coming, and it just fills our living room right to the brim, which I don’t mind a bit. It’s not too big. It’s just right. It’s so inviting. So festive. And I suspect that it’s going to help give Christmas that colorful aura of JOY that surrounds my own childhood memories of Christmas, for years to come. And I want that for my kids! Like I said in passing, this was more an investment than “just a purchase.” In a year with so many changes—some for better, some for worse—this change, this tree upgrade, is definitely one that’s for better, shallow as it may seem. Now here’s to hoping it will last as many years as my parents’ has!

Merry Christmas, y’all. 🎄

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