Holiday Writing

Blackburn-Smith family Christmas tree circa 2010.

Last week, Denise and I spent Thanksgiving in a cabin in the north Georgia mountains with family, including four of our five grandsons, ages one to seven. Talk about boy energy! This Christmas we expect to have all five of our grandsons at our home to celebrate and we can't wait. I just finished putting together a new bunkbed that will allow the boys to share the same room and ensure no one gets any sleep the entire time.

As a storyteller, holidays provide a wonderful set of memories to curate and share with the world. You are guaranteed to be able to strike any tone you desire, from dramatic--the time my grandfather got arrested at our house on Christmas--to humorous. I tend to prefer to share humorous stories. I find trying to be funny when I write is very difficult, so when I can share an experience that was already funny, it goes a long way to achieving my goals.

The Christmas my youngest brother went to college was a very hectic one for my folks. My dad travelled for his work, which meant he was out of town in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and all four boys were working during the college break, so not a lot of decorating or preparations got done. In fact, my mom did not even get to stop and buy a tree until late the night of December 23rd.

On Christmas Eve, I showed up at my folks' house mid-morning, and my brother Rudy arrived a few minutes later. Mom immediately asked us to put up the Christmas tree, which a neighbor boy had taken off the roof of her car the night before and put in the garage. She shared that the selection at the tree stand was pretty poor, but she was happy with the tree she found, however, the tree did have a bald spot that we would need to position towards the wall.

Rudy and I headed out to the garage to discover an eight-foot fir tree, nicely shaped in perfect Christmas tree form. Mom had been inaccurate in her description of a bald spot. There was no bald spot. That tree had a donut in the middle, an eighteen-inch belly band that encircled the entire tree. No branches, nothing. Eighteen inches of bare trunk that essentially cut the tree in half. The top was a perfect three-foot mini tree; the bottom was a three-foot stub, all connected by eighteen inches of brown trunk. And no way to use the other branches to hide the empty donut. The tree was simply not usable.

Something dramatic needed to be done.

Possessing a roll of brown duct tape and being young and confident (or foolish) we set out to correct the problem. We would simply cut the empty donut out of the tree. This would require us to notch the ends of the trunk, so they fit together like a plug and then tape the tree together with yards of duct tape. Mom came out into the garage in the middle of this operation, after the trunk was notched but before it was taped, to check on wat was taking so long. I was holding the two top and bottom pieces together precariously while Rudy was starting the critical taping operation. Mom stood in the doorway of the house. "That tree is really pretty," she said. "I don't know what I was worried about."

After that comment, there was no way to tell Mom what we had done. We got the tree inside and decorated and never told Mom a thing. I could walk up to the tree and see the duct tape clearly, but no one seemed to notice, especially Mom. She remarked all weekend about how nice the tree looked and that maybe she should always wait until the last minute and get her trees at a discount!

We never share the true story with Mom until thirty years later and she could not believe it. She still remembered her beautiful tree.

If you enjoyed that memory, check out the story of how I convinced my grandma to buy my eighteen-year-old brother The Joy of Sex for Christmas in my post from December 2, 2023, I don't sing and I don't dance....

We cannot abide cruelty. (Writer's note: watching your brother open up The Joy of Sex in front of the entire family at Christmas is not cruel. It definitely is funny.) Now is the time to be a beacon of kindness to others. Donate food, or money, or blood (I'm up to 18 gallons in blood donations - almost 150 donations over forty years. I think of it as tithing to the world.)

And now, thanks to our friends at Black Rose Writing, Love: a novel of grief and desire is available to you at a discount! Save 20% on your purchase when you buy directly from the publisher. Just use the promo code SEASON20 at the link below. The discount is good through January 31, 2026.

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