This is the story of how I lost my cherished blue spruce and my last smidgen of "Christmas Spirit".
Follow below the squiggly if you want to read. It is not a happy story. If you're focused on a happy thoughts, might want to save this until the 26th.
I grew up in a typical American household and Christmas was always a big deal, for both religious (Catholic) and secular reasons. Many fond memories of racing Big Wheels around the basement and good times with family.
I gave up on religion after my 12th year of Catholic schooling. My wife is also an ex-Catholic non-believer.
However, I still loved the Christmas traditions. I carried that tradition forward and even when it was just our small family of three we always had a tree and decorated the house. But over they years, we became less enamored with the trappings of the holiday.
When our daughter moved out 8 years ago and with just Connie and I we pretty much agreed we weren't that into it ourselves and began to scale back. When we moved to our new home in the mountains and sold our home in the city, we sold all our Christmas decorations at the moving sale. This year, we have zero Christmas decorations in our home.
But we had an amazing Blue Spruce tree down on the old homestead next to our 1800's replica Appalachian cabin and decided to light it up to celebrate the changing of the seasons and the associated holidays.
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Our new house is on top of a small mountain about 150' above the cabin and tree but in the winter with the leaves off the trees, the lit tree is easily visible. I noted when I let the dogs out at 6:30 this morning that the tree was dark. We had crazy weather last night with house rocking thunder and inches of rain so I figured it was an electrical issue.
We left the house about noon to take the dogs hiking and realized that it wasn't an electrical issue, some fucking Grinch cut our tree down and stole it.
That tree was our last Christmas tree back in 2005 in our house in Atlanta. It was a potted Blue Spruce that we planted next to the cabin the following spring. It struggled for 5 years and only in the past two years had it started to blossom. It was going to be an heirloom tree that would be there to be shared by all who drove by long after we were gone.
So my last grasp attempt to spread some Christmas cheer resulted in me losing a prized possession, one that that cannot be replaced.
That last little bit of Christmas spirit? It's been extinguished.
http://images.dailykos.com/...
I'm just hoping that somewhere close by, there are a couple of unfortunate young children who this tree will bring some joy into their joyless lives to help balance the karma.