I’m kind of solo for bringing Christmas spirit into our home this year. The boys won’t be home from college for at least another week and if we (me) are going to maximize our holiday bang, we (me) need to get the decorations up tout suite.

With so much rain in the forecast (YAY!), I had to strategize about when to get the tree. Of course, the dry spell fell on a week day when Hubby just happened to be out of his home office.

“I’m just going to have to do it solo,” I say to Hubby. “But ya know, the Boy Scouts can tie it on to the car so I should be good.”  We always buy our tree from Troop 224.

“Yep.” Replies Hubby as he continues to push his twenty-pound weights up and down, like it’s a normal thing I get a big fat tree all by myself.

I realize a snafu in my solo adventure. Our tree stand is up in the rafters in the garage. I can’t really toss the Christmas boxes down to the ground and hope nothing breaks or spills out. After a fresh cut, that tree needs water. Hmm.

“Screw it, I’m just going to by a cheap stand at the drug store,” I say to myself. (Empty nesters talk to themselves a lot I noticed.)

I’ve had the same stand since I graduated college so I figured I wasn’t being too frivolous. That’s a grand idea except our drugstore only sells scads of scotch tape and gift labels by the roll (yes! By. The. Roll.), but no tree stands.

“Maybe the tree lot will have an inexpensive one,” I only thought to myself. (Too many people buzzing the aisles.)

I arrive to a packed parking lot for Boy Scout Troop 224. It’s the middle of the day on a Thursday. I thought for sure I’d be the only one. I smile at a lady in a pretty pink coat, watching her tree being tied to the roof of her car. I’m not the only forlorn mom shopping for the family tree all by herself. I still feel weird.

After about five minutes, I find the perfect tree. I start to panic because with the boys, it takes at least twenty minutes. I walk around the tree, checking for big gaps. It’s full and fat. I eyeball the height, mentally measuring if the tree will hit our eight-foot ceilings. Fingers crossed I decide. I can always break out the loppers if it’s too tall.

I befriend a very cheery British Boy Scout mom who is volunteering at the lot.

“I can’t believe I found a tree so fast! There are so many good ones.” I say.

“We just got a shipment at six a.m. today. We only had four trees left yesterday.”

“Wow!” I was so proud of myself. We go back and forth about getting the least expensive stand for my size tree. $25 didn’t seem too steep. She assured me it was the best one because if it were any smaller, the tree would tip over.

“Now I just need to figure out how to get the tree in the stand by myself,” I say as I stare at the stand, the opening looking much, much larger than my trusty old metal stand. I’m happy to actually discuss the possibilities with someone other than myself.

“I know, we’ll put the stand on the tree while it’s laying down!” She exclaims.

“Brilliant!” I say, suddenly sounding British.

Why didn’t we ever thinking of putting the stand on the trunk before we stood the darn thing up in the house? It’s only been decades, thirty attempts at getting the tree in the tiny circle and holding it straight until the screws are just right.

A Boy Scout dad places the stand on my tree; raises it up to make sure it’s balanced, and off he goes to my tie the tree to my car roof, using all his fancy Boy Scout loopty-loos to secure it. He was heaving and pulling, commenting, “This tree is thick!” Which I thought was sensitive as he could have said it was “fat.”

I start to worry about how I could unload my “fat” tree, all by myself

I pull up to the front of my house and who should I see? The GARDENER! I go into the house to prep the space for the tree, moving furniture around and sweeping the dust bunnies away. I lay down a towel, like we always do, in case of spills. Maybe, the gardener just might place the tree right where I want it.

It was my lucky day.

I snip the ropes and roll the tree above my head to the ground, almost breaking my neck. The gardener disappeared for a moment. Darn it. I find a good space on the trunk and start dragging the tree toward the house. At this point, the gardener sees me. He drops his rake and holds up his hands to get me to stop. He picks up the tree like it’s a basket of bread and walks it to my front door. He was very reluctant to go any further.

Neither of us say much. Well, I don’t say much and he doesn’t say a thing. I think his English is about as good as my Spanish so we work in charade like moves. I push past and start to pull on the tree through the door. He’s looking at me like, I am crazy! Gardeners never go inside the houses.  It’s only a few feet to the carefully laid towel.

Done.

Perfect!

“Gracias! Muchas Gracias!” I say in the few words I can remember from high school Spanish. He nods, not looking back at me so he can get the heck out of the crazy lady’s house.

The tree is set up and I did it all by myelf, mostly.

Ta Da!