Stop Swinging the Saw!
Getting a Christmas tree is usually a highlight of our holiday season. We put on our warmest gear, pile into the car with our ecstatic mutt, and head out to the tree farm. We usually end the visit with at least one kid sitting on Santa’s sleigh and everyone drinking hot cocoa.
This year was a little different.
We got to the farm, excited as always. Then Xena, our dog, started a fight with another dog at least twice her size. I pulled her away just as Dylan got one of the farm’s complimentary saws and started swinging it around next to Xena’s head.
Dylan had been feeling happily helpful because he got the saw and the tree carrier without anyone asking him to do so, but we crushed his joy in a flash. We suddenly reprimanded him severely for swinging the saw. He became sullen before anyone could figure out why. Looking back, I see that this was the turning point in our day.
We should have said, “Dylan! Thank you for getting all that stuff for us!” Instead, Bill and I jumped on him: “Dylan! Stop swinging the saw!” and “You almost hit the dog in the head!”
Then we headed off through an old vegetable patch, where Xena stepped in a briar bush of some sort and we spent 10 minutes pulling prickly black balls from all four paws. By the time we got to the white pines, Dylan very loudly declared that he didn’t care what tree we got – that he hated all of them. He was still swinging the saw, although I have yet to understand why Bill gave it back to him. As we wandered through the trees, Dylan unzipped the hood from Shane’s jacket and ran a hundred yards away, with Shane chasing him.
Bill and I yelled at Dylan again. “Give him back his hood!” and “Why would you do that?!” There wasn’t a lot of positive reinforcement for either child as finding the right tree suddenly became a chore. We started marking our favorites. Thankfully, we used the saw to mark one of the trees – so the swinging finally stopped. But Dylan still refused to choose a tree – or even express an opinion other than, “They’re all bad.”
Shane, Bill and I chose three different trees and then we voted that we liked number two. The kids and I stood next to it, waiting for the chopping to start, but Bill wandered aimlessly away. Nearby was a much larger, fatter tree that, for some reason, seemed appealing. It was at least nine feet tall and quite plump.
I have no idea how it happened, but we ended up getting the tall, fat tree and forgetting our first choice. It took substantially longer to cut it down than it usually does, since the trunk was twice the size of most of our trees. It turned out to be crooked, too, so it leans dramatically toward the window at home.
Dylan never did vote for a favorite, and he acted like it was a real pain to help saw it down – which, last year, he did happily. He cheered up considerably when we gave him some chili and hot chocolate.
Shane sat beside Santa for a picture and, without complaint, answered Santa when asked what he wanted for Christmas. Shane is almost as tall as Santa now, so it may have been our last stop at the sleigh.
The Christmas season – with a teenager – has officially begun.