Having had the same artificial Christmas tree for many, many years (purchased at Frank’s Nursery, if you are familiar and remember that defunct store), after we had removed the lights and ornaments from it last year, instead of packing it back into its box and carrying it up to the attic, we took it outside and placed the tree on the curb for trash pickup. I found it a little sad, I love my Christmas tree each year, but it had gifted us every last needle of tidings and joy that it possibly could.
A few months ago, I mentioned to my husband that we should start looking online for a new faux tree, my thought being that once we found one that we wanted to order, if its price was more than we wanted to spend, we could keep an eye on it for a sale.
Where we place the tree is not a large space, so whatever we buy next needs to fit there comfortably. Mister Rain estimated the size of our former tree, its height and width, marking the floor with blue painter’s tape to demonstrate the footprint of the old tree.
Beside the dimensions, the other major criteria was that we buy the new tree from a seller that would be easy to return the tree to, if necessary. For instance, Target or Amazon (by way of Staples).
A few weeks passed, with my husband shopping when he had time. One day he showed me a tree that Kohl’s had; it looked great so we ordered it. When it arrived a few days later, Mister Rain unpacked it and set it up. He zhuzhed the branches, asking me what I thought when he was done. Although my vision is not the most reliable, to say the least, I approached the new fake spruce. Immediately I noticed that I could see the wall behind the tree through its branches, it definitely was a bit Charlie Brown in nature. “It’s a little thin, a little sparse, don’t you think?,” I carefully asked, knowing he had spent a lot of time hunting for the tree as well as now putting it up.
“That’s what I thought,” he said without hesitation, already beginning to disassemble what he had just assembled. It was returned to Kohl’s within the week. And back to the faux Christmas tree farm, located on the Information Superhighway, he went.
It wasn’t long after that he had to go to Lowe’s for something he needed. I reminded him that since it was September, you know, they probably had their Christmas decorations up. Sure enough, they did, but all the trees on display were pre-lit. Many of our friends have told us their stories of trying to remove these lights from the tree after a year or so, when they burnt out. We didn’t want to have to go through that so no-lit was key. He found the same thing at Home Depot. This was turning out to e more difficult than we had expected. Fa, la, la, la, la.
About a week later, Mister Rain texted me a link to a tree he had found online at Target. I loaded it into my virtual shopping cart, but before I hit “Place Order,” I was curious how its price compared to the tree we had taken back to Kohl’s. Logging onto the Kohl’s website, I clicked on my order history, finding the tree easily, as it was my last purchase. The pricing was pretty close. As I went to go back to the open Target tab on my iPad, I did a double-take of the Kohl’s site. looking specifically at the brand and name of the tree. Wanting to confirm what I suspected to be true, I clicked over to Target.
The tree in my Target shopping cart was the same tree we had returned to Kohl’s.
Texting the Kohl’s tree link to my husband who was downstairs to my upstairs, I wrote below it, “Is this the same tree that you want to buy from Target?”
Three dots appeared on my screen, followed by his response. “Yes.”
Why he, who was in charge of he tree project, did not catch this, but his blind out-of-the-loop wife did, is one of the things that keeps our marriage so exciting and fresh. (Santa will end up putting coal in my stocking for that big ole red and green lie.)
Neither of us has brought the subject up to each other past those texts, although I have told my best friend that I am really tempted to purchase an inexpensive menorah without Mister Rain knowing, placing it in the taped area when it arrives. With his keen powers of observation and attention to detail, I am sure he would notice it by the Twelve Days of Christmas. Which year, I cannot say.
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