So the other day Matt and I finished all our Christmas shopping - well, all the Christmas shopping we can discuss with each other, at any rate - in one whirlwind day. It was loads of fun and rather exhausting, but nonetheless we pressed onwards to Home Depot, which was where Matt’s parents obtained a truly gorgeous Noble Fir t’other day.

It was well after sunset at this time, and Home Depot was not especially busy. The Nursery was empty, and the outdoor portions where the trees were slouched were on beyond empty into the quietly dripping industrial blackness of the Nostromo’s hold. After a desultory look at the trees, we bustled off to find out whether there was, in fact, anyone willing to take money in exchange for dying coniferous organisms.

Not only was there such a person, but he accompanied us to the trees and stood cross-armed, inquiring as to which tree we wanted to exchange for money. At this, I was rather startled, having spared barely a glance for any specific tree, and whether it was the impatient air of the smocked minion, the lateness of the hour, or the shadow of night, which had fallen so thoroughly as to have left little bits all over everything, the second tree we picked up and twirled looked adequate to our festive needs.

The process of bringing a 6-foot tree home on top of a Volkswagen and getting it up a flight of stairs into a tree stand is universal and requires no description.

The tree’s effect when so transported, so hoisted and so installed not only requires but craves description. The trunk of the beast contrives to both be bowed over its length and zigzag near its top; said top having a sparse and skeletal air with two arrays of straight twigs at such a perfect parallel one to the other that they resemble nothing so much as a rooftop television antenna. Further down the tree, the eccentric asymmetry manifests itself in gaps in the foliage and a blocky, rather than conical shape—even this inferior blocky shape being marred by a wasted concave patch in the lower petticoats. The bottom branches, providing so much of the little bulk of the tree that they are without a doubt indispensable, lie indolently on the ground, defying the onlooker to find a place to display any present. To finish it off, one great swath of these low-lying branches is broken near the trunk, and therefore will soon add a festive brown to the visual feast.

No, fair reader, this is not “A Charlie Brown Tree.” In order to be such an unfortunate but cute arboreal entity, one must be small. A mangy, wet, and whimpering puppy is an object of pity and the softening heart. A mangy, wet, and whimpering GREAT SLAVERING UGLY HOUND is an object of horror and the thundering blunderbuss. This 6-foot aberration needs must be put down.

I cannot spare more time to spin my tale—I must go buy a new tree.