Trees like that are expensive. And I am thrifty. Some might even say cheap.
Years passed with a very small tree in the soaring, empty space. I stalked Target in late December and January, year after year, hoping to score a deeply discounted evergreen.
My daughter and I popped into our local store to pick something up one such January afternoon. We didn't even get a cart because the item we were after was so small. We took a quick buzz through the dwindling holiday aisles, not expecting to find anything.
Looking up from underneath the Christmas tree. Sadly, not the amazing angle I thought it would be. |
This was my tree! I had no cart!
I looked at Julia, she was something less than 10-years-old, and quickly realized that the cost-effective tree wasn't worth a disappeared daughter. We'd have to hightail it back to the cart corral and hope for the best. I explained the dire situation to her and the two of us speed-walked toward the front of the store.
"We should always just get a cart," I muttered as we huffed and puffed back to the holiday section.
An older woman greeted us upon our return.
"I hope you don't mind, I overheard you talking to your daughter," she said. "Someone else was going to take your tree. I told her I was just waiting for my niece to come back with a cart. I waited here for you to come back."
The tree in all its foyer glory. Truly the only reason for this two-story entry is to house a ginormous tree. |