The "Ugliest Christmas Tree!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting in my recliner reading the newspaper when I came across Jack Brubaker's column titled "The Scribbler."  Talking about the ugliest Christmas tree ever.  Recently a tree in the city of Reading, PA was erected that was really scrawny and drew really bad comments in the letter to the editors of their local newspaper.  Jack was asking his readers to send in their stories about the ugliest Christmas tree they ever had.  Asked my wife if she could remember one of our trees that may have been ugly and her response was, "Never.  Only some that you cut one side off so it would fit against the wall better, since our living room was small.  Then you would nail the tree stand, right through the carpet and hardwood floor, so it wouldn't fall over.  Oh yeah, you also wired the tree to the wall on both sides.  No way was the tree going to fall down, but they did look good.  But, I do remember one Christmas, when I was young, when we had a really ugly tree.  It was ugly as sin."  "Well, let's hear about!" I said.  Carol went on to tell me .......

One year when I was in elementary school my mom and dad bought a silver aluminum Christmas tree.  It had a unit under it that played music and had colored lights that made the silver branches turn different colors.  Really ugly!  I cried and cried and told them I wanted a real tree just like we always had.  They felt so bad that my dad brought a real tree home the next night.  We began to put the tree up and I noticed there was tinsel already on some of the branches of  the tree.  Dad finally explained to me that they had a Christmas party at his business and had used the tree to decorate the office.  "How could you bring a used Christmas tree home?" I asked him through the tears.  At that age drama seemed to get you noticed much easier.  I finally got over it and we did have a great Christmas, but for a few days it looked as if it would be a terrible holiday.   Well, there you have it.  How about your family.  Can you remember ever having an ugly Christmas tree?  A few years ago Carol and I bought a 9 foot artificial tree.  Naturally, it was green!  We miss the smell of a fresh tree, but don't miss needles falling, the cat drinking the water or the chance that it will look ugly when we have it in the tree stand.  Hope your special tree brings you joy during this Christmas season.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.