There are two types of people in this world: those who buy pre-cut Christmas trees and those who insist on cutting their own. Years ago, my wife and I — in a fit of romantic optimism — decided to be the latter. “It’ll be fun,” she said, which in marriage always translates to: You’ll be cold, bleeding, and swearing while I supervise from the heated front seat and occasionally point out flaws in your technique.
Cutting your own tree sounds idyllic — something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Except Rockwell never showed the part where you’re ankle-deep in snow, sawing through frozen bark with a blade so dull it might as well be a butter knife, realizing the “perfect tree” your spouse spotted from the road is growing at a 45-degree angle behind a swamp that smells faintly of decayed muskrat and dirty socks. Around minute 42, you start to envy the people at Menards who simply point at a tree, pay for it, and drive home with nothing worse than a receipt crumpled in their glove box.
By the time I got ours down, I was too numb to feel triumphant. I carried it out of the woods like a fallen comrade — covered in sap, needles, and regret. On the drive home, it was strapped to the roof like a 12-point buck on opening day. All we were missing were blaze-orange hats and someone yelling, “Nice one, fellas!” from a passing truck. Hunters mount their trophies on the wall; we drag ours into the living room, water it twice a day, and let the dog pee on it when we’re not looking.
Some families make it a tradition — heading out the Friday after Thanksgiving, still digesting the pumpkin pie, dressed in matching flannel like a Hallmark militia. Others wait until mid-December, claiming they want it “fresh.” These are the people who, by December 20th, are left picking through the misfits — the trees that lean, shed, and look like they’ve been through a divorce. They’ll say, “We wanted something smaller this year,” as if that was ever the plan.
Go too early, and your tree’s a dried-out skeleton by Christmas Eve. Go too late, and you’re stuck with a shrub that smells faintly of dead needles and despair. Somewhere in between lies the sweet spot — that one weekend when the air is crisp, the selection is decent, and your relationship has enough structural integrity left to survive an argument about symmetry.
Getting the tree into our 1950s tripod stand — the one passed down from my parents — is another holiday ordeal. It’s a medieval torture device of rust, wingnuts, and misplaced hope. Every year I lose a little more skin off my knuckles while someone behind me says, “A little more to the left!” as if we’re docking the Titanic and not installing a fir tree in the living room.
When it finally stands upright — or at least appears to — comes the ancient marital ritual known as The Tree Leaning Argument. “How’s that?” I ask. “It’s leaning,” she says. I rotate it. “Now?” “Still leaning.” After 15 minutes, the tree looks fine, but I’m at a 30-degree tilt.
Then comes decorating. The lights, neatly coiled last January, have evolved into a glowing knot of holiday resentment. I spend half an hour untangling them while whispering things that would make an elf blush. Half the ornaments have lost their hooks, so we hang them by static electricity and pure faith.
And tinsel — remember tinsel? Nobody uses it anymore. It’s been replaced by garland, ribbon, and something called flock with some existential dread sprinkled in. I miss tinsel. Cheap, shiny, unapologetically messy — the glitter of the lower middle class. It made the house sparkle and the vacuum cry.
Every year, someone swears sugar water will keep the tree alive. Others insist on aspirin or Sprite. I’ve tried them all. One year I added brandy. The tree didn’t last longer, but I swear the thing looked tipsy by Christmas Eve. Nothing says “holiday spirit” like a slightly buzzed Fraser fir tree leaning against the wall, humming “Silent Night” around midnight.
And then there’s the topper — the holy grail of Christmas frustration. You can get everything else just right, but that star or angel will always lean. You twist it, adjust it, step back, and somehow it leans more. Like it’s mocking you from above. Eventually, you accept it — the Leaning Star of Christmas. It works for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so why not ours? Then you pour yourself some eggnog, heavy on the “nog.”
As for when to take it down, that’s another cultural divide. Some do it the morning after Christmas, efficient and soulless, as if joy has an 11 a.m. checkout time. Others — like us — wait until the needles form their own carpet. “It still has some green,” I tell myself every February, as if that were a valid metric for life or foliage. By March, it’s less a tree and more a roommate who refuses to move out.
Eventually, I drag it to the curb, around the same time the tulips start to bloom — still shedding needles, and whatever’s left of my dignity. And yet, in eight short months, when December rolls around, there I am again: standing in a lot, arguing over fullness, swearing this year will be different.
Because in Minnesota, tradition isn’t about perfection. It’s about frostbite, sap in your hair, and a drunk Christmas tree with a crooked star that somehow — against all odds — makes everything feel right.
Mark Glende, Rosemount, is an elementary school custodian. “I write about real-life stories with a slight twist of humor,” he says. “I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up.”
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