Oh Christmas Tree!

The boys - Christmas '75

We just put our Christmas tree away for another year and it made me think of a sort of Papa story.  We've always had artificial trees as long as I've been around, but Nani and the Nortons (in other words, the La Fleur side of the family) always had natural trees.

Well, it seems that Dad grew  up with natural trees.  I think he may have told me stories of hunting for a good one when he was younger, but I can't remember them.  I do remember the story of the last natural tree our family had though.

In August 1964 Mom and Dad got married.  Christmas 1964 was their first one together.

I know that Dad stayed in the USMC for a while after they got married and they lived with Nani for a while, but if I remember the story correctly Mom was expecting.  Since I was born in November she wouldn't have been expecting Christmas '65.  It must have been 1964, only a few months after they were married, when Mom was expecting their first child that this story happened.

The house on Kostner always had a huge plate glass window in the front, and they used to have the tree right near the window.

That first Christmas Dad told Mom that when he was gone, if the tree ever caught fire she should grab a chair and throw it through the window.  Once the window was broken she should shove the burning tree out of the house through the opening.

I'm sure Mom looked at him and asked if he really just told a pregnant woman to throw a burning Christmas tree through a window.

Needless to say, Mom was not going to put up with that, ahem, "stuff."  The very next Christmas they had an artificial, flame resistant tree and have had one ever since.

Merry Christmas everybody.