Grandma Got Run Over by a…Christmas Tree?

When I was growing up, we always had a live Christmas tree. We’d buy it from a local charity that sold the trees as a fundraiser.

I loved the idea of picking out the Christmas tree… but I don’t remember loving the actual experience. It always felt like we went out on the coldest night of the entire year.

And because I get cold very easily, standing outside, shivering, staring at a bunch of trees was not exactly my idea of holiday fun.

We’d wander around the lot, looking at trees, and eventually someone (probably my mum?) would declare, “This is the one.” I’m still not sure what, exactly, we were looking for. Some years, I swear we were intentionally choosing the ugliest tree. There seems to be a suspicious number of sparsely limbed Christmas trees in my childhood memories.

Were we terrible at picking the perfect tree? Or maybe I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to stand in the freezing cold any longer than necessary.

Picking out the tree wasn’t enjoyable. And putting it up wasn’t much better. Thankfully, decorating it was more fun… well, the first five or six ornaments were fun. Then we’d get bored, and my mum would end up finishing the tree on her own most years.

My dad would wrestle the tree through the front door and wrangle it into the stand.

While the scene is entertaining now, it was far less fun when it was actually happening. Some years, I distinctly remember all of us kids wandering off to do homework while the straightening-the-tree saga continued in the living room. Okay, okay—maybe we weren’t doing homework. But we certainly weren’t still standing there watching.

Looking back, some of those moments feel like scenes straight out of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.Thankfully, we never found a squirrel hiding in the branches… at least not that I know of.

As an adult, I understand that getting the tree straight probably had to do with keeping it balanced so it wouldn’t topple over. But as a child, the whole routine seemed like ritual madness designed to keep us from the fun part: decorating.

Three days later, when the tree was finally straight (fine, maybe later that same evening), my mum would add the lights and garland. Finally, it was time to decorate the tree.

I loved looking at the ornaments as we hung them up. My mum could usually tell us where most of them came from.

At some point, one of us would reach into the box and pull out the Lifesaver ornament from the previous year. My mum would buy them for us at the church bazaar, and we’d proudly hang them on the tree. They’d stay there until Christmas was over… and then, for reasons still unknown to me, they’d go right into the box with all the other ornaments.

The ornament was made to look like a little guy—a hole punched through the package with strands of yarn threaded through the wrapper and the Lifesavers to form arms, legs, and a body.

All the Christmas decorations lived in the attic, which got nice and hot during the summer months. The candy would melt, and the next Christmas we’d be left with the sticky remains of the poor Lifesaver dude.

I have no idea why the Lifesaver ornament always ended up in the box instead of in our bellies. But every year, without fail, we’d open the box and rediscover the now melted, sticky little guy. Maybe finding the fossilized remains of the forgotten Lifesaver man was just another family tradition?

Although now that I’m thinking about it, maybe we were suspicious of where the yarn came from… and maybe we were smart not to eat the Lifesaver man. Now all I can imagine is yarn embellished with cat hair—yarn that became the body, arms, and legs of a festive Christmas candy man.

Sooner or later, we’d all get tired of decorating the tree, and my mum would ask, “Are you done? You’re going to leave me to finish?” And usually the answer was yes—haha.

Once all the ornaments were up, my mum would add the tinsel. One year, my brother Dave and I were trusted with the job. Needless to say, my mum wasn’t thrilled with the results. It’s possible that we threw handfuls of tinsel at the tree and called it done. It’s also very likely neither of us had the patience to place the strands one by one the way we were supposed to. There may have been tinsel everywhere—hanging off our heads and shoulders, on the floor, sticking out of the vacuum, and quite possibly, even in the dog’s poop.

And the out-of-control tree tinseling was probably my brother Dave’s fault.

I’m still wondering if this is why my mum continues to hide the tinsel from us.

We had several especially memorable trees over the years.

One year, the tree was beautifully decorated when we went to bed, and the next morning it was naked. Most years, the cats were probably the culprits, but that particular year, the lights and ornaments were still there.

Lights, ornaments… and five pine needles.

Another year, my dad decided he no longer needed to tie up the Christmas tree. He’d been anchoring it to the wall for years so it wouldn’t get knocked over. But Dave and I were both teenagers, so the chances of the tree falling over were basically zero, right?

I probably wouldn’t be telling this story if that were true.

Not only did the tree fall on my mum—it also fell on my grandmother. My little, adorably white-haired grandmother. On Christmas Eve. One minute, the tree and my grandmother were standing near the door, and the next? The tree was down and all you could see were her feet sticking out from underneath. I’m not entirely sure that last part is true, but that’s how the story has always been told. 🙂

And then there’s my favorite Christmas tree story.

Usually, the tree went near the front door. But one year, my mum decided to put it against the wall between two chairs. One of those chairs was my dad’s, and normally a table sat between the two.

No one realized this was a bad spot for the tree. My dad came home, ready to sit down, relax in his chair, watch a little TV, and read the newspaper.

Once he got comfortable, he realized he couldn’t see the TV. So he grabbed a pair of scissors and cut a hole in the branches. Just a small window—just big enough to watch TV through the tree.

A little while later, my mum noticed the hole and turned the tree so it looked full and beautiful again. My dad wasn’t there when she did it, so when he sat down later, he was confused as to why he could no longer see the TV.

Rinse and repeat. Dad would cut a hole; Mum would turn the tree. This went on for days.

Finally, my mum caught him mid-snip and realized where all the mysterious bald spots had been coming from. She just laughed and shook her head.

Despite the naked, ugly, or selectively trimmed tree limbs, Christmas was always fun. I have so many good memories that I still laugh about with my parents and siblings. No matter how weird those memories are, they’ve definitely endured.

Our Christmases might not have been the picture-perfect holidays people like to imagine, but they were filled with joy and laughter. And honestly—what’s more important? The ‘perfect’ holiday that probably isn’t real… or the perfectly imperfect Christmases we shared?

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