As the holidays give way to plain old winter, it was time to get rid of the tree. It is always a sad moment, taking off the lights and ornaments and wrangling the thing out of its base.
But all good things must come to an end.
The nice thing about living in a hayloft is the large opening at the far end of the room.
The door that used to accommodate incoming hay is just right for outgoing trees.
Beyond the convenience of saving our stairwell from the sad confetti of dead pine needles, there is the thrill of throwing a tree from one’s window. The satisfaction of it goes a long way toward muting the post-holiday blues.
We tend to get attached to inanimate objects and have to make up stories to make ourselves feel better about discarding them. When we got rid of our last car, we told ourselves we were sending it to college (for its own betterment).
Robbi, who was on the receiving end of the transfer process, dragged the tree to the curb and told it a few well-intentioned lies about the excitement and adventures that lay ahead.
Regardless, the tree will be memorialized as well as any of us can hope to be, in memories and photographs.
All in all, this tree got to be part of some pretty good ones.
