The Great Christmas Tree Heist
Guest post by Jane Eaton Hamilton.
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”—Anne Frank
“There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life – happiness, freedom, and peace of mind – are always attained by giving them to someone else.” —Peyton Conway March
Sarah rattles the chain link fence and breaking icicles shatter like bells. I look back at Joy in the driver’s seat of the Micra, drumming mittened fingers on the steering wheel while the car puffs determined smoke rings into a swirl of snow. This is totally not going to work. The tree lot still has lights on, but it’s late on Christmas Eve, the roads are skating rinks, we’re in the middle of a white out, there are no people around anywhere, and it’s locked up tight. Except, maybe, for police trolling up and down Hastings Street looking for burglars.
I blow on my hands and say, “Never mind, let’s check somewhere else.”
Sarah keeps examining the perimeter. It’s so cold the inside of my nostrils freeze.
We’ve just come from delivering a hamper to a sole support mom and her kiddos this Christmas Eve. When Marsha confided that she couldn’t find a taxi willing to deliver a tree to her, and her kids held up homemade popcorn and cranberry strings, their big eyes blinking, well, we were goners.
Sarah finds a spot where the chain doesn’t meet and manages to slide inside, all elfin and thin. I’m a hundred pounds bigger and 23 years older, and when she holds open the gap, for a minute I just pray for a cop, anyone just to stop me from getting stuck. But I’m all charged up and reckless. Breaking and entering, me? It’s such a surreal moment that it seems like we could never get caught. I push my bulk through the gate and sure enough, yup, stick as if the fence is size 10 pants. Can’t go forward, can’t go back. Just for a second, I hate Joy in the safe warmth of the getaway car.
Sarah says, “Mom, come on,” and yanks my coat.
Like that will work.
Suck it in, I tell myself and surprise myself by popping out like an enormous ping pong ball. I am the most graceful thief in all of Vancouver, surely.
Green boughs beat in the wind like weird angel wings, but we soon find out there aren’t actually any trees left. I think, Why lock the place up then? There are needles and wood chips and chunks littering the ground, heaps of string, dangling ropes that once anchored trees. In the debris, I’m cold, shivering. Around Vancouver, no one dresses for the weather, and I’m no exception in a light spring jacket. Sarah finds tops that have been cut off other people’s trees, woebegone trees, and holds them up for my appraisal (which surely I could have offered from the legal side of the fence). Finally, I just nod, because really, they all look the same—like not real trees, just like Charlie Brown trees a pitiful two feet tall.
Still though, lame or not, the tree cries sap as we drag it back to the opening. I tell Sarah we should leave a twenty stuck in the door of the shed, but she says I’m insane. I tell myself the tree was just going to be pulped anyhow. Sarah slides out. She tugs the tree out. I, on the other hand, heave and ho and suck in my gut and finally stumble free ripping the back out of my coat. Joy lifts the sorry little tree into the back of the car. We skid out on the slippery roads with the tree shushing out the back like some demented green mermaid tail and take it to its awaiting family.
At our house, Christmas morning turns out to be a bit of an anti-climax because the hamper was our only gift to each other, and, well, we didn’t get a tree either. But we have our beautiful house, and each other, and before long, the scent of cooking turkey and the sounds of relatives knocking at the door to celebrate with us. And we have this small something else tucked inside us like a little private present just for we three—the memory of our great Christmas tree heist and the knowledge that across town some kiddos are opening presents under their brilliantly decorated little tree.
Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of six books and the owner of Vancouver’s photo studio Jane Photo, where she photographs mostly the under-ten set. She is the mother of two grown daughters. This year she will deliver another Christmas Eve hamper.
Image courtesy of www.janeeatonhamilton.com
