Lets go to the Italians!

A week ago we went Christmas tree shopping. First we went where we have been getting our tree for the last three or four Christmases, the Lowes parking lot. The tent was gone, they were out of Christmas trees. We then went to the tree tent we passed on the way to Lowes, which had a cardboard sign reading 'No Trees.' Strike two. Then we went to Home Depot, which we also passed, and they had some trees under their tent that were fenced off. Strange. My mom and I walked into the garden section and asked a guy about them. Apparently, those trees were quaranteened for bugs. and slugs. Hmm.

We went to Walmart. They were out of trees. I called another walmart, and then another one. I called the Publix supermarket by our house too. They had two trees left. A big one and little one. My mom sarcastically exclaimed that I should call the lady back and tell her to run outside and put a 'SOLD!' sign on the cheaper one. She scoffed at having a reject supermarket tree, and how we should go to the Italians. For safe measure, I called another supermarket, the one closer to us. And then three more...all of which were out of trees.

How can no one have any live christmas trees left?
("Yes, a real, LIVE tree.....Oh, okay, thank you for checking, Merry Christmas.")

Rejected, bugged, and slugged, we circled to the infamous Italians, our ultimate backup joke through our ongoing tree hunting saga. What I mean by that, what my mom meant by that, is the Italian American Society had a tree tent that my mom had seen trees at sometime before....and they did have trees! In fact, a clearly non-italian tree farmer told us that they had just gotten a fresh crop the day prior. My mom made small talk about how all the rain stopped us from buying a tree earlier. It rained for 20 minutes probably in the whole week, but it happened to be the only 20 minutes my mom, diego, and adri had piled into the car and tried to purchase the Christmas tree before.

But you must have a live tree. Why do so many people just settle for fake trees?

The woman proudly took us to the biggest tree, the only $90 tree left. The rest were a normal size, for around $75. Oh no!

We found one for $65 we liked, but the longer I held one of it's hundreds of hands, standing guard from the real Italians who were tree shopping along side of us, the longer my mom had to think about how even $65--for that tree--was a little steep. The Italians had the right idea, snatching up the little $35 5 1/2 foot neighbor.

So we found the other shorties and picked a plump, quaint, little $35, 5 1/2 foot tree ourselves. It fit in a big bag in the back of the car.

She was easy to bring in the house and set up. No latter was necessary to put our angel at the top, and half our ornaments stayed wrapped up in outdated newspapers.

The tree fulfilled the spirit of our humble Christmas this year. It's real cute.