Tree Rex

[Martin Hash]

I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet but last year we spent the winter in Peru with my son’s family and didn’t have a Christmas tree so my wife, Gwynne, got an early jump on it this year. The mad dash to get a Christmas tree now was partially instigated by a friend of ours sending a picture of somebody with a dinosaur skeleton-Christmas tree hybrid because she knew we had a dinosaur skeleton so, obviously. Turns out you can’t actually buy such a thing but you can make one, and since we had half the ingredients already, the other half was easy to come by. There was also the added impetus of it being our granddaughter’s first Christmas. It’s not like a less than one-year old will remember her first Christmas tree but she would certainly scoot over and try to pull the lower ornaments off, which is at least memorable to the adults.

First we looked into fake Christmas trees like the picture used but Gwynne likes to go pick them out & cut them herself, plus the real ones smell like Christmas. Gwynne called around to Christmas tree farms to see if they were open yet, and the closest knew who she was and said come on over, open or not, so we charged up the truck battery, waited for the sun to come out, and high-tailed it down there. The real question was were we going to get our regular 12-foot tree and pop the dinosaur’s head out through the branches, or a 7-foot tree and have the dinosaur look over the top; shorter tree won because Gwynne also wanted to incorporate her potted plants into the display.

Tree.jpg

Gwynne let the tree combo set for a few days while she decided how to decorate it. Normally, she filled the tress exclusively with penguin-themed ornaments but she wanted to do something different this year to go with Tree Rex. She got creative by incorporating original 1993 Jurassic Park toys as the odornment, shoving the rubber dinosaurs, plastic vehicles & action figures right into the branches. She even surrounded the base with the Jurassic Park electric fence pieces from the playset. To top it all off, she bought everyone “Tree Rexasaurous” ugly Christmas sweaters.

Christmas Family 2022.jpg

Tree Rex was a big hit with anyone who came into our house. I put a picture of it all lit up on Facebook on Christmas and lots of people Liked it but the biggest fan was our new granddaughter, Nico, who would scoot up to it every day in her walker and try to pull the spruce needles off the branches. She was fascinated by the glowing LED lights and would stand fondling them for several minutes at a time. On Boxing day, our traditional time for opening presents since it was the only time everyone can get together considering the demands of their time from other family obligations, Nico had her first Christmas present opening flurry. She scooted among all the family members as they opened their brightly colored boxes & bags. Her father had only gotten her one present, a bag full of tissue paper. Nico couldn’t wait to spasmatically wave the sheets in the air and tear at them, eventually putting the corners in her mouth and biting off pieces. Her uncle tried to stop her but her dad told him it was okay, it’s Christmas.

[Martin Hash]

Socks I got as a gift after Christmas.

Tree-Rex Socks.jpg