Monday, November 26, 2018

Our Latest Import


We have a new Christmas tree. It replaces one that is probably twenty five years old. It also replaces another one Pam bought two years ago for a ridiculous amount of money that was used exactly once and nearly ruined Christmas because it was...entirely too skinny. So, we are hoping that this new behemoth will do the job. It was on sale, I’m told. It is also the first pre-lit tree to grace the Dunnevant living room, and it has white lights, also a Dunnevant family first. It stands 7.5 feet tall and comes festooned with 1000 lights.

However, upon closer inspection this morning, I have discovered a couple of troubling things. Pam apparently bought the Mexican version of the Trim-a-Tree18, since there isn’t a word of English anywhere on the packaging. Luckily, I can figure out what pre-iluminado means, and I recall enough from my tenth grade Spanish class to figure out that this tree isn’t intended to be used outside...solo para uso en interiores!! To make matters even more confusing, the back side of this box informs me that the Trim-a-Tree18 was manufactured in China. (Distributed by Nicholas Holiday Inc. Taipei, Taiwan)

So, my wife went out and bought a Chinese-made Christmas tree, intended for sale to Spanish-speaking customers, from a Lowe’s Hardware store in Short Pump, Virginia.

This United Nations amalgamation of Christmas is the sort of thing that will warm the hearts of internationalists everywhere, but I’m wondering how Santa is supposed to keep it all straight. If we wake up on Christmas morning to find serapes and Baja jackets under the tree, I’m not blaming Santa.

One other thing I noticed about this tree...it weighs a ton! Actually, 32.2 kgs (71 pounds). Lugging this brute into the house from the car was hard enough. I cannot wait for the post-Christmas fun of hauling this baby up two flights of stairs where it will have to spend the rest of the year with the six other English-speaking trees in the attic.



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