O, Christmas Tree

Let me just say this. I like Christmas. I really do. I especially like it since the year we scaled back all our gift giving to only those people living in our house. It certainly cut down on all the holiday stress. But I do like Christmas! However, there's one task that I just don't like, and that's tree hunting.

I live in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a very, very large tree farm. From the banks of the Delaware River to the shores of Lake Erie there are trees. In fact, the very word "Pennsylvania" means Penn's Woods, combining the name of our tolerant Quaker founder with the forest that was his personal property, a gift from an English king. To this day, except for dots of civilization like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (I'm using the term "civilization" loosely in reference to Pittsburgh), the entire commonwealth is a vast woodland, and a good portion of that woodland is evergreen. So, it's not at all unusual for Pennsylvanians to have live Christmas trees in their home, and it's also not uncommon for Pennsylvanians to have actually chopped down their Christmas trees with their very own hands. And I do love the smell of a fresh tree, and it certainly does look splendid when it's standing there all decked out in holiday finery. What I don't like is the spectacle that goes along with Christmas tree hunting and chopping.

For anyone who does not live in a tree-cutting area of this great country, I want to specify that at least in our neck of Penn's Woods, people don't just go outside with an axe and begin cutting down any old tree they see. Most of Pennsylvania is privately owned, and the law frowns on tree stealing. And if your local culture does not include Christmas tree cutting, then you may have an idyllic picture in your head of snow covered forests, brisk cold air, and smiling, jingle-bell-singing families traipsing into the woods together for family bonding. Well, it's not really like that, at least not when you live with monkeys.

Apparently I was not invited to the "tradition development meeting" on Monkey Island. No one told me that this yearly quest for the perfect tree had become something that cannot be altered. We MUST awaken very early on a cold December morning. We MUST go to breakfast at a diner (which I do enjoy, by the way), and then we MUST find a suitable Christmas tree farm, walk through the rows of tree and argue about which one is perfect. While this goes on, the three monkeys must run through the trees, hurling snow and insults at each other, not a concern at all for trees. In fact, they probably don't even notice trees.

This year was no different. After internet research was done, likely candidate tree farms were identified in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Kong announced the evening before that he expected us to be conscious and ready to go by 7:15 a.m. the following morning. At approximately 8:30 a.m. the next day, we pulled out of the driveway headed for the traditional diner breakfast. The monkeys were bleary-eyed, as most teenage monkeys are at that hour of the morning -- or indeed, at any hour before noon. This year, a twist was added to our adventure. We all traveled in the same car. You see, back in 1998, Kong, ever the accountant, decided to save five cents by purchasing a minivan without a roof rack. (I defy you to find a minivan without a roof rack.) So year after year, because there was not enough room in our minivan to carry a tree and all children in seatbelted safety, we'd take both the minivan and the car. In that way, when the perfect tree was procured, we could cram it into the van, and then pile people into the car to follow. But by the summer of 2005, I had purchased two kayaks, and one really must have a roof rack for kayak transport. So this year, with a custom Yakima rack on the minivan, we drove in family togetherness, listening to holiday music and anticipating the real reason the monkeys and I go on this hunt, which is the diner breakfast.

Diners are a wonderful thing, especially at breakfast time. Kong and I share a love of diners. I'd rather go to a diner for breakfast than a Michelin five-star restaurant for dinner. And Pennsylvania, along with being a vast woodland, is also a diner Mecca. We've been known to drive the width and length of the commonwealth in search of diner fare. Kong has skidded to screeching halts at the site of an unexpected stainless steel gleam of a Silk City classic. The monkeys love giant omelettes, great stacks of fluffy pancakes with gobs of butter, and even that Philly classic, scrapple. The only reason that I go on this yearly expedition is because there's a diner breakfast involved. This year was no different, except we ended up at a chain diner, which is, in fact, a mutually exclusive term. The place was o.k. It had a diner theme, but it wasn't the real thing. What was all too real was the monkey floor show that we brought with us.

Lately, meal times have been a chaos of teasing and creative name calling. It has the potential to be funny, but it's gotten stale. Baby Monkey calls the Monkey Prince fat. Monkey Prince declares that Baby Monkey has no friends and needs a haircut. Baby Monkey responds, "Cut your throat." And on and on it goes. The Monkey in the Middle usually joins in by laughing at the two biological monkeys, who seem to get encouragement from this. Kong and I just sit with weary looks on our faces. We're long past the point of caring if people think we're horrible parents. Eventually the monkeys will move away, and we can move about in public again.

Breakfast went on for the better part of an hour, but once it was over, I realized I now had to deal with the actual tree search. We drove and drove and drove through miles of trees, looking for a tree farm. We eventually found the farm that Kong had researched on the internet and found that we had to park on one side of a busy road, then cross in front of a flashing police SUV which blocked our view of speeding cars, and climb a nearly perfectly vertical hill, past an impressive display of over-priced, pre-cut trees from other tree farms to reach the field of trees. Short trees. Most of them were seedlings. To be sure, there were some lovely 4 and 5 foot beauties, and if you like small trees, this would be the place for you. But we have 10 foot ceilings in our house, and Kong is proud of the size of his tree. Each year it must scrape the ceiling, and if he has to cut off part of the tree to make it fit in the house, then so much the better. Nothing pleases him more than to hear visitors exclaim, "Wow! You have a big tree!" The little trees in this field were not making the grade. And even though we could clearly see over all the trees to the very ends of the property, Kong insisted that we must walk the entire acreage, checking for some 9-foot conifer that might be hidden behind a 4-foot cousin. Never mind the laws of physics. He pointed out that in the distance there were large trees. "Dear, those are on the property line. They're 20 feet tall and they aren't part of the crop." "Who the hell plants trees in a tree field to mark the end of a tree field?" He had a point, I suppose.

While this was all going on, the monkey boys were running through the field acting like monkeys. Kong suggested that we try another farm. Ugh. NO!!! Even the monkey boys did not want to go any further. But no short tree for Kong! In the pre-cut section we had passed on our way to the seedling field were many tall trees, exactly the same stinking trees that some roadside guy was selling at half the price in parking lots an hour closer to home. Undeterred, we now embarked on the search through the pre-cut trees. The boys ran away, we knew not where, and I didn't care. Kong, now searching through tall trees, was a voice unseen, as he called out to me, "Look at this one! How about this one! What do you think of this!" I'll tell you what I think. Take one. Any one. Because we'll just cover it with lights and ornaments, and it will look like every Christmas tree we've had for the past 20 years. At one point, he found one that he seemed to think was perfect, but he was afraid that he might be missing a more perfect specimen in an area that he had not yet searched. He instructed me to stand next to his perfect tree while he went off to check out the other identical trees. I suppose he expected me to engage in a fight to the death if someone else also considered his tree to be perfect. I stood there, unenthusiastic, and watched another family looking at trees nearby. They had a springer spaniel with them. A male springer spaniel. At least I'm pretty sure a female spaniel would not have lifted its leg to pee on a Christmas tree.

As I leaned toward the tree I was guarding, sniffing the air to see if this family and their dog had considered "our" tree, Kong called out to me. "There's a good one over here." He came running back to guard the tree himself while I walked off about 10 feet to look at yet another tree. It looked exactly the same as the first tree. In fact, it looked exactly the same as every tree there, but since it was a safe distance from the spaniel, I decided it was more perfect than the other perfect tree. Kong went in search of one of the tree technicians to tie up our tree and to empty our bank account to complete the purchase. There was still no sign of the monkeys who missed out on this moment of family bonding. But Kong seemed happy.