The Perfect Tree
Dec08
on 12/08/2015
at 12:01 am
This cartoon begs the question… what is beauty worth? Are you fine to settle for a less verdant or less lovely tree in order to save a few dollars? Is Ryan now doomed, when he looks at this tree, to only see the near 100 bucks he blew instead of the perfect tree he found… ? If given this same situation, what would you do? Pay it, or hightail it?
*photo credits: Panel 1- Channel 11 news, BYU, “Christmas Tree Lot” article, 2014. Panel 2- Anderson Christmas Trees (website), Owensboro, KY.
You could get an artificial one—it won’t shed needles, it won’t be [much of] a fire hazard, and you can use it again next year…
Sacrilege! Plastic trees don’t bring that lovely pine scent into your home… it’s just not the same. And LED lights are low energy and low fire risk. Besides, I like to go to the tree and inhale deeply and make that “AHHHHHHH, smells like Christmas!” proclamation.
But, you can do plastic.
just get an artificial tree and spray some pine-sol!
More Sacrilege!
To get past that pine scent issue, we just get a single pine branch and make a wreath out of it. When hung near the artificial tree you get the smell and you don’t have to kill a whole tree for it.
While a good idea… I … I … plastic.
Allergic souls will bless that.
The cheapest tree on the lot was already purchased by that blockhead kid for his Christmas pageant (and all of his A-hole friends complained about it and just kept dancing while he was trying to talk to him…good grief!).
Good Grief, indeed… however… they came around in the end.
Ouch! That’s not much tree for a lot of dough. Out here, $200 will get you a gorgeous 13′ tree that four grown boys can just barely stand upright.
And $95 will get you a beautiful 8′ tree.
I looooove having a live tree for Christmas!
I, too, love having a real tree… ah, the smell of Christmas hits you every time you you come home!
I love that you write a story in…what, October?…, and it totally comes to life in December. Art predicting life! (So make sure you write happy.)
This happens a LOT don’t it? Artists… we see into the future without even knowing it!
I can’t tell you how many times I got the “perfect” tree only to get home and find out I had to cut a foot or more off the base to make it fit, that no matter how I turned it there was a dead and/or bare patch showing, or that by the time I got it through the door there were more needles on the floor than on the tree!!! Over the years the trend in my home (as the kids grew up) was to have smaller and smaller trees. I figure in 10 years I’ll have a table-top tree and that will be just fine!
I think that the situation is part of the charm of the tree… I have come to almost expect some weird tree disaster or odd thing associated with getting a live (dead) tree. One year, I had to wire on the branches along the bottom of the tree because of the scenario you described. And why not? The tree was gonna die anyhow? So what if the bottom branches are a bit “crispier”…!? Anyhow…
One nice thing to living in northern Canada. Free trees, if you don’t mind hiking out to some local farmer’s place who doesn’t mind you knocking one down. And if you don’t mind the cold while you search for one!
I imagine that there is a warm feeling you get from going out in the cold and finding a tree…. the warm feeling is the hot chocolate you get when you come in from the wintry wonderland.
I stopped killing trees for Christmas years ago, we got one of those fake trees that look real. It was a whole lot cheaper and better for the environment.
I understand the wish to keep the environment in mind. I do. One year, our good pals Kitty & Mike, who were living in Monterey at the time, bought a potted live tree. It was a lovely little pine. They decorated it and then after Christmas, donated to the city where it now lives along the rec-trail. I think that this was a lovely thing to do. Another year, they bought a redwood… but alas, I know not the fate of that one. They actually used it for two years in a row, as it lived in a large pot in the back yard.
I was waiting for Randee to find that little Charlie Brown sapling and take it home. Someone else must have gotten to it first.
I give this link to you… from the Squid Row of old…. http://squidrowcomics.com/ryan-picks-tree/
I have my Geek Tree that I decorate every year. A 6′ artificial tree strewn with all sorts of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Marvel/DC superheroes, and just about any other fandom ornaments. Might have to upgrade in a couple years…too many ornaments and not enough tree!
This year, we culled some of the Xmas ornaments. Sometimes bigger trees aren’t better… sometimes smaller trees with only the bestest most loved ornaments is better.