We leave at about 11 this morning and it’s snowing like it’s going out of style. Finally we arrive at the place where the so-called “Deer Trail” cut-your-own tree farm is supposed to be — but there’s nothing there. Unless you count a tiny little side road marked by a tiny little sign reading “B.J.’s Tree Farm”, but there’s a snow-covered chain across that road, I know because I could just make it out.

Anyway, OK. Because we’re modern and have two smart phones with GPS and we’ll just call and get the straight dope, right right. The Deer Trail number is a voicemail. It says, in a vaguely hung-over voice, that they’re open Friday through Sunday and located…exactly where we are. Beyond this informative litany, we are informed that we can’t leave a message because the “message box is full”. Meantime, smart-phoned-up Snow Virgin finds for us the nearest “other place” we can allegedly cut or buy or steal or otherwise procure a tree. It’s about 8 miles away, in whiteout conditions. But given the death-defying stunts we’ve already managed to pull off, by golly, we’re gonna get a tree. Somehow. SomeWHERE. TODAY.

We get to the second place and there’s lots of details I’m skippin’ here trust me, but the deal is 78 bucks for a tree but they’re Mom and Pop “wholesale supplier” not a Mom and Pop “cut your own” operation, but hey — we’ll take it. So I write the check.

As it happens I’m parked over a hill which is also Mom and Pop’s driveway, the one I couldn’t drive over earlier because Mom and Pop’s dear college son just arrived home for the holidays and got stuck halfway up the hill… IN HIS MINIVAN. Anyway, finally and I mean FINALLY — while we were standin’ out in the snow and the wind, next to an electrical urn of “hot cider” that hadn’t been anywhere near an electrical outlet for at least two days — FINALLY Pop got everything plowed and towed with his treaded Bobcat front loader. Thus I set off on the great journey over the hill to get the car to drive it back nearer to the hot cider so we could load up the tree. About a dozen steps into my great journey my right foot slipped on a bit of compressed snow/ice stuff left during the recent industrial-strength Bobcat clearing project; I went down and felt a snap near my ankle. So was my great journey ended, with me makin’ a one-armed snow angel and swearing a blue streak RIGHT IN FRONT OF MOM AND POP.

While I continued making artful amputee-related snow patterns, Pop finished my journey, brought my conveyance over the hill and, with just enough twine, tied our 78 dollar precut tree to the roof. Though I was a little shaky, my broken ankle didn’t appear to be immediately life-threatening. So off we went, into the driving snow…this time with our hazards flashing and me driving an automatic with two feet, thankful I wouldn’t be needing a lead one in these snowy conditions because OUCH.

Now we’re all home. My ankle is swollen, but I can still put weight on it as long as it’s placed directly downward. It’s Sunday evening. There’s NO WAY I’m going out there again today. So here I am, dear friends. I’m sittin’ here on the couch. With a bag of frozen early green peas on my ankle, a Christmas tree to my left, Miami at San Francisco on the tube, and surrounded by folks that love me — including one thoroughly deflowered Snow Virgin. What’s not to like?

I have big plans for an X-ray tomorrow. As for today? Today was a day to remember.

Happy Holidays! May yours be memorable yet non-life-threatening too.

 

EDIT: Here is the tree, suspended from the ceiling and decorated.