Christmas Tree (guardian) Angel

Today will be a day that Ellie tells stories about her whole life. It will be one of those rare younger-than-5-years-old moments that gets remembered.

With all the wind recently, we've come to find an old Christmas tree in the ditch near the end of our driveway. Today, I was out with Ellie, and I decided that it was time to dispose of it. Ellie asked what I was going to do with the tree, and I told her I was going to burn it in the barrel.

Well. That was clearly not what Ellie expected to hear. She immediately protested and ran down to the barrel to prevent me. She stood guard while I went to the house to get matches and a tree saw.

A three month old Christmas tree really blazes, so I used the saw to cut off branches around the bottom until I was about half way up the trunk. The whole time Ellie was protesting and wailing. She was crying so fiercely that I admit I laughed, a lot; it was so funny. I filled the barrel with branches and lit them off.

When I turned around, Ellie was rescuing the naked trunk of a Christmas tree and its top, dragging it across the yard away from me, crying. That didn't make me laugh less.

In the end, I prevailed. The Christmas tree is now ash and carbon dioxide. And Ellie has a tale of trauma to use for the rest of her life.