Well, Christmas is over for another year. Christmas 2019 was a particularly good vintage, as it goes, and involved much hilarity. In the course of enjoying the hilarity, I rehearsed (several times) the family story of the ‘rescued Christmas tree’. Also in the course of enjoying the hilarity, however, the family story of the ‘rescued Christmas tree’ was somewhat overshadowed by the new family story of the ‘marzipan solution’. Of which more later.

It seems inevitable that next year, it will be the ‘marzipan solution’ that forms the basis of festive family hilarity. So, equally, it seems appropriate that I record the details of the ‘rescued Christmas tree’ now, before its delights are lost forever.

Once upon a time (Christmas Eve, 2018, to be precise), a perfectly respectable gentleman of relatively advanced years took it upon himself to drive about his home village in rural Oxfordshire, for reasons unclear to anyone. Quite probably even himself.

This gentleman had not yet secured a Christmas tree for the annual family Christmas gathering. It was Christmas Eve. The family tree was rarely decorated before Christmas Eve. The tree decoration was a Christmas Eve tradition, usually involving small children delighting in hanging the entire set of decorations on one specific low branch, and a military operation to redistribute the decorations as soon as the small children were in bed (with the constant risk that they might creep down looking for Santa, and be robbed simultaneously of their belief in Santa, and in their own tree-decorating prowess).

So. Not having the tree before Christmas Eve was no problem at all. Not having the tree by Christmas Eve, however, well that was a different story. The events that led to this unfortunate lack of a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve remain unclear. What we do know, is that something made this gentleman set out in his car on Christmas Eve and drive about his home village in rural Oxfordshire. It may well have been the need to escape a house full of tinsel-wielding children. And that whilst driving about, he spotted a fine looking tree, propped up at the side of the road. And that a bright light shone and a chorus of angels sang ‘Alleluia’. Maybe. And that he had the presence of mind to stop, stow the tree in the boot of his car, and take it home to be decorated (twice).

What we further assume, is that there was a perfectly good explanation for why a perfectly good tree would have been discarded before Christmas Day. We assume, for example, that the tree was not propped up outside the house of someone who was intending to bring it inside to decorate (probably only once) for their own family. We assume this, and we never tell of the rescued Christmas tree within the Oxfordshire county boundaries.

This is a true story. Last year, it was the best Christmas example we had of eccentric ingenuity. But that was Christmas past. That was before Christmas present. Christmas present brings the ‘marzipan solution’. To be covered in the next of three thrilling sequential festive posts.