tree.

I'm just so upset. We have not been successful in making our Christmas tree drink water.

We made sure the tree guy cut off the bottom and the low branches so that it would sit low in the water. We gave it plenty to drink, and then realized the water level wasn't lowering at all.

We mentioned this in passing at our Care Group and one of the older gentlemen (you have to say "older" and "gentlemen" together, because it makes using the word "old" a little more easy to hear, and you can never say a word like "gentleman" without explaining your suddenly fancy word choice) suggested pouring Sprite into the tree's water. Fortunately, since I had been sick the week before, we actually had Sprite in the apartment! That never happens. We usually have tea, Coke, Mountain Dew, and milk. But rarely all at the same time....

Anyway! So we added Sprite. And no change. I told one of my co-workers that we had gone crazy and were giving our tree carbonated sugar, and she had heard that regular ol’ straight sugar added to the water works best. So I added sugar. And no change. But by this time, the tree’s trunk was probably coated in stickiness, so who’s surprised it couldn’t drink?

We decided to try lowering the tree further into the water. But this wasn’t going to be easy- there were several branches in the way. Some of them were easily cut off with scissors, but there was this one mammoth sized branch that was hoping to make Tommy’s life a little harder. We aren’t rugged outdoorsmen, so we don’t have a saw or an ax (or axe- both are ok.) But! Tommy DOES have an electric drill. So he drilled off the branch. Don’t ask me how. There was probably a lot of saw-like action going on. And then he drilled in some holes on the side of the trunk so the current state of stickiness could be defied.

When Brian and Miranda came over for game night, he and Tommy lowered the tree so there was a full four inches or so under water. “Aha!” we thought, “This will work!”

Nope.

Last night, two ornaments fell off the tree while we watched the finale of Survivor. The branches of our poor thirsty Christmas tree have started drooping. Our dear tree can no longer hold little, tiny, almost weightless decorations! WOE.

It still looks pretty. It is still green and hasn’t dropped many little fir needle leaves. But it is just SO SAD to know that it is slowly dying- ok. I guess I mean it is slowly dying faster than it needs to.

This is why I have always, always wanted a tree that was dug up and has its roots and is put in a huge pot. One day, I will have a potted living Christmas tree. I know that the root system will need a good amount of room, so it will be less like a “pot” and more like a small rounded room. And it can sit outside when it isn’t Christmas time. When it is, we can roll it on a dolly (yes, I know the word “dolly”- you can’t move 18 times and not know the word “dolly”- although whoever named it was dumb) through our French doors straight into our living room. Ah, what a happy tree. Now we just have to get Tommy on board!

I feel like this could be a very good metaphor for our lives before and after Jesus. Before Him, we try to feed off of worldly sugar and its bubbly "goodness." You can so easily see this in your unsaved friends and co-workers. They depend on their jobs, their abilities, to make life for them. They have nothing to depend on but their own feeble and dying selves. They look alive but- They can't take in the sweet and everlasting water of True Life because they are not rooted in Christ.

Oh yeah. Learning from a Christmas tree :)