O Tannenbaum

Tis a tree that would make Charlie Brown proud... of his own tree. Honestly, I think this is my favorite Christmas Tree we've ever had. It's got personality. Flimsy, disheveled, whimsical, and, with the fantastic decorating by Kate and the boys, Perfect. Of course, the adventure of Christmas in Jerusalem makes this motley conifer even more special to us.

We started priming our holiday spirit by visiting Bethlehem last weekend with an organized tour for Consulate Staff and Spouses. We visited the Church of Nativity and did some shopping. On the way back to Jerusalem our bus driver hit the traffic-arm at the check point leaving the West Bank. After a little yelling between the guard and our driver and probably a few calls to various supervisors we did eventually get through and home.

The trees arrived at the American Consulate Thursday courtesy of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which is a bit surprising after reading this article). The boys and I drove over to meet Kate for dinner with plans to bring the tree home after. Halfway to the restaurant it began to rain. This coupled nicely with the heavy winds that had been bombarding my eyeballs with sand all day prior. We found refuge in a nice little Italian restaurant as we watched the rain increase in volume. As Kate and the boys had a little dessert I ran back through the rain to the Hyundai Matrix we're still renting. Thinking it would be easier to cram the tree into the little SUV before the boys than vice versa, I found myself driving back to Little Italy with a car stuffed like a cypress canolli. If you're wondering why we didn't tie it to the roof, I didn't have any twine on hand and, well, you haven't read the article I linked to yet, have you? At any rate, we managed to plant the boys into their seats and make the pine-fresh drive home. Ozzi, spurred on by the invading branches, got wise on how to unbuckle himself from the protective confines of his car-seat. Luckily we were just about home and here child seats are very much the exception and not the rule. Explaining the tree obstructing 98.9% of my view while driving would be much harder than the 2 year old climbing over the back of the driver's seat. Once home in one piece I procured a small bucket of Jerusalem's finest limestone gravel. This works quite well in absence of a traditional tree stand. Our non-traditional Christmas Tree in the capital of the Jewish State now stands, in all its festive glory, awaiting a visit from our jolly fat friend from the north.