In 1999 I was at the grocery store with my older sister, Natalie, about a week before Christmas. As luck would have it, they were giving away FREE Christmas Trees! Ben and I were poor college students at the time, so I jumped on this free tree offer.
Natalie and I loaded the tree on top of her 1980-ish Pontiac Bonneville that she’d inherited from my grandparents.
It looks sorta like this:
I got some rope and tied the tree on top of her car and we left the store. After several errands she dropped me off at my car and I told her I’d come get the tree from her later.
A week later we went to my parents house for Christmas Eve.
Natalie stormed in the living room and demanded that I get that bleepity-bleepin’ tree off her car!
I’d totally forgotten to get my tree from her!
And she was so ticked because I’d tied all but her driver door shut with the rope from the tree.
My bad.
Oh, we all just died laughing.
And then, we pretty much all peed our pants because with one look out the window we saw a Christmas Tree still tied to the top of her car, totally frozen over with ice sickles, and wind-blown with all the branches broken backward.
You see, I’d tied the tree on top of her car with the front of the tree facing forward, not backward, so as she drove around all week, the wind blew the branches backward and then a big ice storm covered them in icicles.
It was such a “Clark Griswald” scene.
My only regret – I didn’t grab my camera and take a single picture of the scene. I wasn’t as great about photographing everything before the internet and blogging was invented.
This story has been retold every.single.year. since 1999. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Poor Natalie. She drove around for A WEEK with 3 of her doors tied shut and the trashiest looking tree on the top of her car.
Just the thought of this tree story makes me laugh-out-loud every.single.time. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop giggling about this one.
Do you have any hilarious holiday stories that get told and retold year after year?
Haaaaahaaaaaaahahahah! If I was your sister, after you hadn’t come to get it in a day or two, I would have taken it off. That’s hysterical! 🙂
OMG that is so funny! You wrote is so well, I could totally visualize it in my mind. Yeah, I laughed out loud.
Ha ha ha!!! That is freakin hilarious!
Here is a link to my story:
http://increasinglydomestic.blogspot.com/2009/11/gingerbread-and-family-traditions.html
Oh my gosh… I am laughing SO hard! That *totally* soundslike something that would happen to my sister and me! I can just imagine her driving around with a tree strapped to her car! LOL Love it! 🙂
Hilarious! I get such a kick out of hearing other family favorites that is what makes memories
Our kids love to tell the story about the year our 15′ tree fell over and destroyed 20 some years worth of collectible ornaments all the while I was out at the store buying ornament hooks :0
Allison, that has to be the BEST Christmas story EVER! my husband and I are rolling on the floor! So funny, I couldn’t breath! Thanks for sharing that!
Ashley Judd curtis
That is so awesome!! I would have died to see that car cruisin’ down the road with a ghetto tree and rope strapped to the top of it!
Last year our turkey wouldn’t cook so my husband decided to BBQ it to get the thing going. Of course we had company over when we all smelled a horrible amout of smoke. He ran outside and lifted up the lid to see our dinner totally engulfed in flames. When doused, it was nothing but a black charred carcass on the grill.
Oh my! I can just see that tree…on top of her car! Too funny!
Hugs
SueAnn
Oh that is hilarious!
THAT was a great story! My dad was always one to clean up around everyone, even while opening gifts! So after opening gifts, my dad did his thing, throwing all the wrappings into the fireplace with the flames burning it all up. It was a few hours later that my mom could not find the new sweater that we had given her…..Yep, up in flames with all the wrapping paper. Dad NEVER cleaned up the wrapping paper again!
That is too funny! Too bad there isn’t a picture but to be fair – back then cameras used film. Needed money to buy it and then money to develop pictures that may or may not turn out. LOL
holy crap. i’m in tears. that sounds like something i would have totally done… gufawing loudly…
Oh – I LOVE this! My favorite part is that she never called you or stopped by to ask you to get it off her car – just drove around for a WEEK! Hysterical!!