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Sunday Night
MaryHelen Swanson

Last week as I gave devotions for the church council meeting, I talked about calamities and tragedies. Tragedies, especially during the holiday season, are awfully difficult to survive, but we do with the help of loved ones and good friends.
Calamities, on the other hand, absurd little mishaps that put a temporary crimp in our lives, are an irritant during the holidays and should be laughed at. Ha, ha.
Last weekend I had a calamity.
During the week, on my way home, I spied a sign for Christmas trees at $15 at a home in Harris. Grabbing whatever was available in the car, I wrote down ìtree $15î so I would remember to tell my husband. And I did.
Plans were made to get up early Saturday and get there before all the good trees were gone. And we did. And, in a monumental moment in the history of tree searches, it took only about 10 minutes to pick ìtheî tree for the Swanson Christmas celebration 2002.
That alone should have set off an alarm, because we never pick out a tree that quickly, and never at the first place we look.
Hubby and our daughter marched it off to the pickup and I paid the man. It was all going so smoothly.
At home, the magnificent tree, perfectly shaped and bright green, looked absolutely gorgeous as it stood propped against the house next to our large American flag. And there it waited patiently until Sunday afternoon.
Then came time to bring it in the house. Daughter and I rearranged and rearranged the furniture for hours. The television took a turn against each of the four walls. The couch, matching love seat and another large piece of furniture went from wall to wall, and at one point it was all bunched up in the middle of the room. We thought about removing a piece of furniture, but there just wasnít any place to put it, and besides, we needed every seat for the grand gift-opening event. Nearly exhausted, we finally arranged the furniture as it had been when we started minus the video rack next to the television. With a shove, the TV was moved to the east leaving a fairly large open area where the tree would stand. Next, came the tree and I suddenly felt like Alice in Wonderland. The room began to shrink and the tree simulated an entire forest. Too big, I said, perhaps not that nicely.
The beautiful tree is back outside propped up against the house by the American flag. Iím not laughing yet.

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