ugly Christmas tree

ray hofstetter

Well-known Member
Anybody else have an ugly tree like THIS?
a92205.jpg
 
That's not a bad looking tree. May I share the account of mine? I don't have a picture. When I first went to Lake Charles, my wife and the kids stayed here for the first two of four years. I found a mobile home that was alright, and cheap. Being somewhat resourcefull I found furniture here and there as people moved, and stuff. As Christmas approached I found a tree that had lights already installed on the branches, which sounded cool. The down side is that the tree was a mess. some of the wires were bare, and where the sections connect were missing on both the tree and the wires. I laid the tree on the kitchen island of the trailer and began to operate. I had a chief that believed that an E-6 should make himself scarce by lunch so that E-5's can practice being E-6's. This gave me plenty of time on my hands. BTW, my chief didn't seem to understand his logic taken a step further, when he found me "Practicing being an E-7". Where the wires between the bulbs were bare, I took a dentist pick and worked the wires out from the sockets, so that I could replace the section of wire without a connector. Obviously I replaced the connections with green replacement plugs at both ends, and sanded some CPVC piping (It may have been the CPVC connectors It has been a few years). I also took some fake tree branches I found here and there and fit them to where some of the older ones were missing. If you ever have to do this, make your length cuts toward the tree so the outer area will still be the same, and rewrap the wire supports to fit where the other came out. If the ones you are replacing the old with are thicker, you can also thin them down with a very short piece of pipe the same diameter as the needle spread of the rest of the tree. It was a tedious job especially the bare and broken wires between the lightbulbs, but, it turned out nice. I set it up and looked at it with the lights and nothing else, until my dad found out that I was looking at a tree with no decorations. He sent some money expressly for decorations, which made it look even more Christmasy. I still have that tree. My wife likes it better than the original one that stayed up here with her.
 
Who cares, it's still a tree, and I think it will look great when you decorate it? Post us a pic after you decorate it! Than well see how nice it is! ;)
 
We still have to cut ours. Unfortunately the ones we planted a few years ago have been picked over and what's left is what's left. By the time a 2 yr old and a 3 yr old have their way with it, It won't make much difference. Tree seller down town is asking $35 a copy this year. For that I'd expect potted with root ball intact, but NOOOOooo!
 
Think back and remember the Christmas trees we had as kids! They were all pretty bad until they were decorated and we still liked them. This one is not bad. Natural trees are rarely prefect. Does it make the house smell like pine?

I wouldn't get a Charlie Brown shirt because of that tree.
 
I don't think that's ugly at all. I think it looks pretty good.

Many decades ago, my brother and I were asked a favor by one of our sisters whose whole year revolves around Christmas getting here. We were asked to get her a tree, and it was Christmas Eve, my brother's birthday. Would have been easy enough for us to do. Get her a tree by Noon or so, put it up for her, let her decorate it, "Merry Christmas Sis". But, we stopped off for a beer at the tavern, ran in into some friends, and more friends, and more beers, and more friends, and closed the bar. Guess what? No tree, and by then it was technically Christmas, no longer Eve or my brother's birthday. Not good. So, we found us one back on the edge of the woods, must have been about 16' tall, and her ceiling was standard 8', but at two or three in the morning, she got what we could see good enough to round up. We took it to her front lawn, measured off what she needed, cut it, and dragged it through her font door. What was left of it was ugly, and she was in tears for us waking her up, all tanked up, delivering the loser of all trees of all time. She worked what magic she could, making her oversized Charlie Brown tree look as good as she could, which was wonders looking back on it. My brother and I loaded up the scrap, and left her. When we saw it sober and with hangovers the next day, it was still ugly, but Sis made do. We never did that to her again. Never ever.

Your tree looks nice. And even if you don't think so, keep in mind that me and my brother could have taken care of you, so be glad with your good fortune and Merry Christmas and a much Happier New Year to you and yours.

Mark
 
That's not a bad tree at all. We used to cut an old cedar out of the fencerow. Then drag it a half mile to the house. Have you got a woman around the there? Turn her loose on it. She'll transform it into something for the front page. My wife is happiest when she's fooling around with the Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas!!!!!
 
Wife sent me to pick out a tree one year. I bought one like that, the ugliest thing I ever saw, but it was cheap. She finally went and got one herself, which is what she really wanted in the beginning. My father-in-law and I cut it up and he made garlands out of it. Never again!
 
There's no such thing as an ugly CHRISTmas tree. When I was a kid dad would go get a nice hemlock tree and the flat side would go nice up against the wall.
 
That is Majestic!!
We are not traditional (at all)
We have had dead lilac bush
Tumble weed
PVC pipe and square wire from a box spring as branches
Norfolk Island pine
Buffalo Berry bush
as trees. Among many others.
This year it is a 6 foot potted Ficus
Jim
 
Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid- we had 60 acres or so of woods, and getting a tree consisted of traipsing around all over the place, comparing this tree to that one, and trying to remember where that one was last year that we thought would be good for this year. As others have said, natural trees are seldom perfect, but we were always happy with what we ended up with, and that's the main thing. We also always got a little 2 footer for my older sister, who decorated it in her room. Good memories.
 
Yup! Got a bunch of them up in our woods. My son and grandsons wouldn't have a perfect tree, even if someone bought them one. Every year they go up on the hill and cut a "Cahrlie Brown" tree.
 
It's not about being "perfect", it's about taking something natural, with all it's flaws, and the family turning it something pretty and YOURS. We call then "Charlie Brown" trees, we've had a lot of them. Then SWMBO got feeling guilty about cutting down a tree, surely some socialist nonsense she picked up from the other girls at school. So now we have a plastic and steel contraption that I hate.

Give me the good old days.
 
Trees are "scarce" here on the farm and we couldn't afford a tree this year after paying taxes.

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At least it was green at one time.
 
On the right hand side of westbound Interstate 24, a couple of miles past the Big Bay Station interchange, way out in the middle of nowhere, there was a cedar tree just inside the right-of-way fence. Every Christmas season for years, someone would slip out there and decorate that tree, complete with wrapped "presents" underneath. No electricity, of course, but lots of balls, tinsel, even a star on top. It was a neat surprise that I never got tired of seeing. Last few years, it's not been decorated - tree is getting pretty big now, and probably the mystery decorator is getting old, or maybe gone. I always wanted to copy that idea here in our remote neighborhood. Might just do that shortly.

Paul
 
Don't you remember the little Charlie Brown tree that got saved??? Well, you did this tree a favor as well. lol.


By the way, we've had a dang eastern cedar as a Christmas tree once with a buck rub on it. :)
 
based on the picture below with it wrapped you may have been taken.

you could prune it and shape it up a bit. Kinda mixed results on getting the cuts to seap sap or not. Pruned a couple on ours once in house (we grow our own.. if you need one in NE Ohio let me know).. and no sap issues.... yet anyway.
 
Take it outside and take the hedge clippers to it.
I have about 25 E.R> Cedars of various heights that I "shape" every two years. So cutting my own is fun and they are pretty much perfect. I am doing one for some special buyer. It's 25 feet tall now and we shape it with a hedge saw and the tractor loader. I stand back 25 yards and give tips on a two way radio.
I'll get a picture.
 

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