When I was little, we didn’t get our Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, which sounds crazy today, with Christmas commercials showing up on TV with the Halloween candy, but in those days, all day long on Christmas Eve, our anticipation vis-à-vis getting the tree would grow, sending thrilling shudders throughout our bodies, until finally our dad would huff into the house, late as always, coming from the tavern, his cheeks ruddy and his eyes sparkling like aquamarine. “Hey,” he’d say, pulling off his parka and stamping his feet. “Your mother and I were thinking we’d skip the tree this year…” and we’d start hollering and booing and tearing our hair out “…because, anyway, there’s no presents…” and the hollering would grow in pitch and volume, referencing Santa and reindeer “…’cause we heard from Santa that he couldn’t make it, gotta nasty head cold…” and by now the neighbors were leaning out their windows, telling us all to pipe down, referencing the sheriff, and finally our dad would say, “Okay, well, I guess we may as well have a tree, there’s a good spot for it over by the TV and your mother can hang laundry on it, since we don’t have any ornaments or tinsel…” And, still yowling like banshees, we’d hustle into our boots and jackets and pile into the station wagon and head to the tree lot in the next town over to buy a tree.
One year it had snowed so hard all day on Christmas Eve that we could barely see any of the few remaining trees on the lot. Our dad pulled one out of a drift that resembled a yardstick with a pine needle on top. “We’ll take it!” he cried, and we named it “Charlie B.”
Another year there were no trees left at all, and we returned home genuinely fearing that our dad’s annual proclamation would come true. “Time for the midnight tree store,” he said solemnly, and taking Bill, the oldest boy, by the hand, went into the garage, and after much banging and swearing and apoplepsy, emerged with axe and handsaw. We piled into the station wagon again, our breath steaming the windows as our dad drove off the plowed pavement, onto a dirt track, into the deep forest, filled with snow. “That’s it,” our mom said, pointing, and there in front of us was the loveliest tree you can imagine, as perfectly shaped as a wedding cake, as tall and grand as a church steeple. Our dad (and Bill) lurched through the snow and, lit only by the car’s headlamps, cut down the tree. When it fell, we all cheered, until our mom said, “Shush now.”
It was too big by far for the living room, and the top tilted over, making the angel look drunk and foolish.
The next Christmas our dad was out of work and out of sorts and our mom bought a plastic tree at Walgreen’s, which became our forever tree. We named it “No-Name.”
Author: Nancy Elizabeth Quinn’s work has been published in Wild Roof Journal, The Blood Pudding, East by Northeast, Big Whoopie Deal, The Festival Review, CommuterLit, Half and One, and other literary journals. In May 2023, she completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.