It's not a bad little tree... maybe it just needs some love

Greetings friends. I hope the holidays are treating you well. The inspiration for this post is not too hard to figure out- this is the story of the 422 Family Christmas.

You see, at school I live in a house with 7 other girls. The astronomical amount of estrogen contained in that tiny house is enough to drive most people bonkers, but I absolutely adore it. I am the kind of person who would chose company over solitude about 99% of the time. I moved into the 422 house my sophomore year with 7 other girls in Theta Alpha and by my junior year, 5 of them had either graduated or moved to a different apartment. We were blessed with 5 amazing new roomies who were found in random and various ways, but we quickly became a family.

 

This is the first and only (I think) picture of all 8 of us. This was from our Harvest Party, which will be a blog post later.

So, this story takes place in early December. It was the last week of classes and the Monday after all of us returned from a fun, yet disappointing trip to Atlanta where our beloved Gators had lost the SEC Championship game. Needless to say with exams looming, we were all in depressed moods. So, on my way home from WalMart, wracking my brain in attempts to find some way to cheer everyone up, I spontaneously decided to stop at a Christmas Tree tent. You see, I had never owned a real tree before (my brother is allergic). So I had the bright idea to bring home a Christmas tree for my Gainesville family. I had budgeted about $45 to give my roommates Christmas gifts. I decided to spend that money on a Christmas tree, a stand, and decorations for it. 

At this point, anybody who has previously purchased one of these iconical cones of piney goodness sees the flaw in my naive plan. I sauntered up to that yellow tent and walked up to the first perfect tree that I saw, my only negative thought being "how am I going to get this through the door?" So I asked the tree man how much this beauty would be. 

$75

When I returned to my senses approximately 30 seconds after receiving that shock, I told the man what my budget was and was laughed at. Then Mr. Lumberjack led me away from the tall, full beauties, away from the plump medium sized ones, and even past the slightly respectable modest ones. He led me out of the tent to the back, where I was shown the only tree on the lot that was within my price range.

Meet Charlie, named after everyones favorite lovable idiot, Charlie Brown. This tree was straight out of Chuck's Christmas special, and the good ole' lumberjack took pity on my naive good intentions and sold me the tree and stand for $40. It had almost no branches on the back and was leaning so far to one side that we had to put four DVD cases under one leg of the stand to make it look upright. Charlie stood at about 4'10" without the stand and was so small that he fit in my trunk. No need to strap him to the roof of poor Wanda. Just shut him in the trunk. 

I brought him home like a mother bringing home her first child and ran through the house like a kid on Christmas morning shouting for my roommates to come outside. The few that were home and not holed up in Library West grouchily left their piles of textbooks and trooped outside in the rain as I popped my trunk and revealed my precious cargo. Their reaction was WAY better than I expected. Within ten minutes we had Charlie set up inside and were on our way to Walmart to buy decorations. Pooling our spare change we bought one strand of lights, one pack of garland, and, instead of ornaments, we picked up styrofoam balls and sequins, a trick my grandmother taught me when I was little. We brought everything home and spent all our free time that week making homemade ornaments and watching Christmas classics while eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate.

Our star for the top

Everyone's mood improved as we came home to decorations in the living room and the wonderful aroma of pine wafting to all corners of our humble abode. As the week went on, more decorations appeared, courtesy of Gainesville Dollar General and creative websites.

It was so perfect. And, just like Charlie Brown's homely Christmas tree, a little love was all it needed to shine.

I really do despise how commercial Christmas has become. It is all about what one can or cannot afford and how many useless toys we can collect. And I know I sound like a broken record or an Andy Williams Christmas special, but there really is so much more than that. I am so blessed, and the holidays are a good time to reflect on that. Over 2000 years ago, the God of the Universe chose to come to Earth as a baby. The ultimate humble blessing in disguise. No matter how many times my life has been turned upside down in the past four years, the things that always seem to keep me grounded are the simple ones- like this tree. An overall comical situation united 8 stressed girls under the notion that bigger isn't always better. When it comes down to it, friends, family, love, and grace are the greatest gifts of all.