Oh Christmas Tree!

The following is a reprint of the story which involves the cutting of our first Christmas Tree here 5 years ago.
As a carpenter I pride myself in estimating the size of things fairly well. Pride often comes before a fall and my fall was coming. During some trail clearing last summer, I noticed a nice twenty-foot spruce tree growing in the middle of the trail. Rather than cut it out and let it die I decided to leave it until winter and use it as a Christmas tree in front of the cabin. I envisioned how beautiful the tree would be all decorated in front of the cabin to celebrate our first Christmas and I could hardly wait.

We moved up to the cabin in September. I’d spent two months cutting firewood to heat our house, winterizing the plumbing, insulating, and replacing the leaking roof on the house. December rolled around fast and I remembered my plan for the tree. We’d already had a couple of inches of snow so we could drag the tree up without getting it muddy.

The tree wasn’t in an easy place to get to. A large valley lay between the access road and the trail the tree grew on. My plan: cut it; let it fall into the valley then pull it up the other side with ropes attached to car. I started the chain saw and removed the lower branches of the tree so I could reach the trunk of the tree. Hmmm, this tree looks a little larger around than I thought. I cut a wedge out then cut from the opposite side to fell the tree into the valley. The tree cracked and fell. It went from the trail all the way to the bottom of the valley. The twenty foot high tree was at least fifty foot. Branches held the trunk of the tree ten foot in the air and I couldn’t reach it to cut the tree smaller. Time for reinforcements, I returned to the cabin and loaded the Subaru up with ropes and Lee Anne to help me.

We parked the car opposite the tree and walked down the valley and up to the trunk sticking into the air. “I am going to loop this rope over the trunk,” I told Lee, “then we can pull it down the valley.” I lassoed it and we pulled, and pulled and pulled. The tree barely budged. “This tree is heavier than it looks.” I said with exasperation. Lee gave me a “Sure you know what your doing?” look. We developed a rhythm and the stubborn beast moved down the valley. “I am going to cut about ten feet off.” I told Lee “This tree is too heavy for the car to pull up the hill.”

I started the chain saw and trimmed the tree back ten feet. “That should do it.” I proclaimed and we stretched the ropes up to the car. I crawled under the car and looked for something to hook the rope to. I wrapped the rope around the back axel. Poor car, I thought, its engineers couldn’t imagine it pulling a large tree up a hill. Lee started the car and moved down the road. As soon as the rope tightened the car tires spun and started to slide.

“Darn, still too much tree.” I said to myself.

“It’s too heavy.” Lee shouted back to me from the car.

I marched back down the ravine and restarted the chain saw. I cut another ten feet off the tree and we dragged the branches away. Lee tried again and the tree started up the hill. I’d wrapped the rope around an old stump so the tree would go up the hill, instead of following the car down the road. Slowly the tree rose up the hill. As the tree approached the end of the climb, I waved to Lee to stop. I detached the rope and Lee went down the road to turn the car around and head back. She pulled the tree toward the cabin and I pulled sideways on the rope to help roll the tree up to the road. Once on the road the Subaru easily pulled our prize to the house.

“The neighbors are going to think we are nuts.” Lee said eyeing the large tree.

By neighbors I knew she meant our resident mountain man. He never did anything that wasn’t practical. He would wonder what those silly girls were up to now. It would be dark in a couple hours so we decided to wait until the next day to raise our tree to its upright position.

Morning came with the anticipation of getting the tree up. Okay, I thought, if I get two ropes on the top and we stay almost opposite each other we should be able to pull it up. Ropes attached. “Pull!” I yelled. For all our effort and strength the top of the tree bent only slightly.

When at first you don’t succeed you get the Subaru. One major problem, the only place to put the Subaru was on ground about six feet downhill from the base of the tree, hardly a spot to get an upward lift. I didn’t have anywhere to run a rope up to get vertical lift. I decided on anchoring the bottom of the tree to the porch and the top to the porch with enough slack it could go up but not swing out. The last rope ran from the top of the tree to the waiting Subaru. I gave Lee the signal to move forward slowly and prayed the porch wouldn’t pull off. The rope tightened and the tree started to move. Snap! The rope to the porch broke and the tree swung facing the wrong way.

I gave a grunt of disappointment. The blame thing is too heavy. I thought to myself.

“You going to have to cut more off.” Lee shouted affirming my thoughts. She walked up and we both stood for a while at our problem trying to think of an answer.

Afraid of wrecking the porch with the car, I decided the tree must shrink until we can pull it up ourselves. I cut another five feet off. Every foot I cut from the tree took a little of my pride with it. We tried to lift it again.

“Still too heavy.” I shouted in frustration.

“You’re going to have to cut more off.” Lee said not hearing me.

“I am really going to be pissed if we end up with a eight foot high tree by the time we can lift it.” I complained to Lee.

The chainsaw chunked off another five foot. We pulled again. This time the tree started to go up.

“I think we can get this up now.” I said elated. “Lets put the lights and star on the top before we lift it.” I suggested. “We can’t reach the top once its up.” Through a combination of pulling and pushing we got the tree up on a board between two ladders so we could wrap lights around the top and I wired the star to the top.

Lee pushed against the top of the tree with her shoulders, leaving her with some nice bruises. I pulled it up with the rope. When it started to reach vertical she grabbed the rope and tried to stabilize the tree. Too late it fell to the ground. Tired we groaned and pull the tree into position again this time we got it tied off before it returned to earth. I ran two ropes to the porch and one to a stake in the ground. I decided to add three eight foot two by sixes nailed up about five foot on the trunk and angled down like a tripod as added support. Confident in my two by six tripod and ropes would hold the tree in a wind. I stood back to look at the tree. The glorious spruce had suffered much abuse on its journey to our lawn. Cutting nearly thirty feet off the fullest part of the tree, the scraggly top looked like a large version of a Charlie Brown tree. My tripod of two by sixes stuck out like a sore thumb. I looked at the large pile of limbs I’d cut off and started to weave them into the sickly looking tree. I covered the tripod and filled out the bare spots. “Not bad.” I said to myself. Lee and I finished stringing the lights around the tree and we waited for dark.

Without streetlights and other houses in competition we lit up the forest. All the tree’s imperfections disappeared in the dark. Animals watched the bright tree and wondered about their strange human neighbors. I looked out my second story bedroom window and saw the star of the tree even with my eyes. It’s a Christmas miracles, I thought, for even after cutting thirty feet off my twenty-foot tree it still stood twenty feet high.