The year before Paul and I were married, he lived in an apartment shared with four other guys. One of them, "JM" said, "I'll get the tree!" when Christmas approached. Full of spirit, enthusiasm and not much else, he went to the forest, and proudly came back with .... a pine tree. Not a fur, or a spruce, but a pine, with long, thin, bare branches with long fine needles at the end. The branches were so thin, they could not hold the weight of an ornament, unless you hung it right next to the trunk. It was pathetic. It was sad. It was a five-foot-tall version of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, before Snoopy magically transformed it.

Even, "JM"'s father, who came to visit, exclaimed, "What moron got the %#$*ing Charlie Brown Christmas tree?"

His son at least had the grace to blush as he admitted responsibility.