My mother wants a 2-foot Christmas tree. A real one. Cut fresh from a Florida tree farm. <\/p>\n
Only 2 feet tall! <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo feet?!?\u201d I gasped in horror when she told me this. \u201cThat\u2019s not even a tree. That\u2019s a weed!\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother likes scrub brush pines. The kind that grow in the sand or gravel. In my mother\u2019s mind, it\u2019s the classic Florida Christmas tree. They are so starved for water from the never-ending drought that they look like they have mange. We find them at a Christmas tree farm in Eustis where you cut them down yourself.
\nActually, many of them look quite pretty. But to get the size my mother wants \u2014\u00a0before they grow to a normal height, fill out and look pleasant \u2014\u00a0you have to sift through a selection of odd-shaped sprouts and runts. <\/p>\n
Since my mother doesn\u2019t go \u2014 she just hands me a check and some strict orders \u2014\u00a0we have to make the call ourselves. <\/p>\n
My mother doesn\u2019t ever water her tree. By the time Christmas comes, the poor guy is little more than a shriveled stick with clumps of brown needles hanging on for dear life. The tree gets so dry that it risks spontaneously combusting, and for that reason, no one wants to sit by it as we pass around the presents.
\n<\/p>\n
Big patches of needles are always missing. That\u2019s thanks to Little Joe, her cat. No one knows what he does with them, or where they go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t be any taller than two feet!\u201d my mother declared. \u201cHow else will it fit on the table like last year?\u201d<\/p>\n
On the table?!? Huh?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Grandma Evie,\u201d my daughter tried to explain. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get you a real tree last year, remember? That was a fake tree \u2026 you were finishing your chemo. You said you didn\u2019t want to decorate a real tree. You were afraid Little Joe would climb to the top and you wouldn\u2019t be able to get him down.\u201d <\/p>\n
My mother stopped to think about it. A revelation. How long it had been. How different a life. All the compromises she had to make to live it. The things she had given up. <\/p>\n
No bother. She shook it off. That was in the past now. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway \u2026 I can\u2019t have a tall tree! What about Little Joe?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
We all looked at each other. Little Joe\u2019s fur is blacker than coal dust, and he has mischievous yellow eyes like a movie villain. He does climb things \u2014 all sorts of things \u2014 but a Christmas tree? Why would he do that? <\/p>\n
Only, you don\u2019t argue with my mother. No \u2026 I take that back. You DO argue with my mother; you just don\u2019t expect to win. <\/p>\n
So this weekend I\u2019ll be cutting down a two-foot pine scrub that will fit in the glove compartment of my car. If I\u2019m lucky, it won\u2019t burst into flames on the way back. <\/p>\n
And if I\u2019m REALLY lucky, Little Joe won\u2019t get stuck at the top, doing whatever it is he does up there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mother wants a 2-foot Christmas tree. A real one. Cut fresh from a Florida tree farm. Only 2 feet tall! \u201cTwo feet?!?\u201d I gasped in horror when she told me this. \u201cThat\u2019s not even a tree. That\u2019s a weed!\u201d My mother likes scrub brush pines. The kind that grow in the sand or gravel. In my mother\u2019s mind, it\u2019s the classic Florida Christmas tree. They are so starved for water from the never-ending drought that they look like they have mange. We find them at a Christmas tree farm in Eustis where you cut them down yourself. Actually, many of them look quite pretty. But to get the size my mother wants \u2014\u00a0before they grow to a normal height, fill out and look pleasant \u2014\u00a0you have to sift through a selection of odd-shaped sprouts and runts. Since my mother doesn\u2019t go \u2014 she just hands me a check and some strict orders \u2014\u00a0we have to make the call ourselves. My mother doesn\u2019t ever water her tree. By the time Christmas comes, the poor guy is little more than a shriveled stick with clumps of brown needles hanging on for dear life. The tree gets so dry that it risks spontaneously combusting, and for that reason, no one wants to sit by it as we pass around the presents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,555,561,558,556],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-nutshells","category-animals","category-family","category-florida","category-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}