Christmas Bull

The Christmas Bull

“Mama, we need a Christmas tree.”

            

I placed the glass I was scrubbing back down in the sink, still covered in suds. Julie was sitting on a couch in the living room, and Nancy was behind me, staring up at me with wide eyes. “Oh? It’s true we don’t have one yet, but your Papa usually takes you to find one.”

            

“But he’s working late still. Mama, you have to take us to go get one. It isn’t Christmas if we don’t have a tree!” she exclaimed. I was skeptical. To go into the woods to find a tree, we would need to go through the fields where the cows grazed. It wasn’t the cows in general that I thought would give us trouble; the bull was what I was concerned about. However, with Nancy staring at me so hopefully, I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

            

It wasn’t too late yet, so I told Nancy to go find herself something warm to wear while I finished washing the dishes. Once I was done with that, I brought Julie to their room to get her dressed in something warm too. I almost had a heart attack, however, when I saw Nancy holding up a bright red sweater like she was about to put it on.

            

“No!” I said quickly. She dropped the sweater to the floor. Her eyes were almost as wide as when she was asking me to go get a tree as I explained. “If the big bull out there sees anything red, he’ll come running at it. I don’t want him to come running at you.”

            

“But mama,” she responded, “the wheelbarrow is red. How are we supposed to get a tree if we can’t take it?”

            

“We can still take that. It should be fine. Now go get yourself a coat and wait for us on the porch,” I reassured her. I pulled a brown shirt and a blue coat out for Julie, dressed her, and wore clothing of a similar shade. Nancy was waiting patiently on the porch when I arrived.

            

“This is so fun,” Nancy said as we traversed across the yard and down into the farm. There weren’t many crops out, since it was winter, but I had to keep the two of them careful of the fire ant hills. “I love Christmas trees, mama. They have the best smell ever!” I smiled down at her in response.

            

We came up to the big, brown barn and I had them wait outside. In the far back corner sat a faded, red wheelbarrow that we would take. Off of one of the shelves to the side I retrieved a hatchet and a handsaw, dropped the saw in the wheelbarrow, and brought it all outside.

            

I opened up the gate to get past the barbed wire fence and we continued our journey. It took about ten minutes to get far enough into the woods to see any good trees. Luckily, it seemed like the cows were out grazing much further than we needed to go, so I figured we wouldn’t need to worry about the bull. Finally, I spotted a tree I thought looked nice.

            

“What about this pretty little tree?” I asked, hatchet in hand. Nancy’s nose crinkled as she stared at the tree in question.

            

“It’s so small,” she replied. “We can do better than that.”

            

We kept looking through all of the trees in our woods. I came across another one that looked like it could be successful, but when I suggested it, Nancy pointed out that “It is way too big, mama There’s no way it would fit in our living room!” What she said was true, so we continued our search.

            

We had been walking for about twenty minutes more when I found another tree. It was larger than the first, and smaller than the second. When I looked at Nancy for approval, all she needed to do was smile and nod before I used the hatchet and the saw in the wheelbarrow to cut it down. Once it was down, I threw it on the wheelbarrow and began the long trek back.

           

            

We stopped once by the river for a break. The sound of it trickling through the woods was relaxing. Though it was cold outside, I was sweating. the cool breeze blowing against my skin felt heavenly, like stepping in front of a fan after being on the farm all day. I noticed it was starting to get darker, so we continued our journey back to the house.

            

We were almost back when I started to hear the cows. I was immediately concerned and began to walk a bit faster. Eventually, we came upon them. They were returning from when they were out grazing. It took me a long moment before I saw the bull. Unfortunately, he also spotted us. In a panic, I dropped the tree and wheelbarrow right in front of the barbed wire fence, since none of the cows go near that fence, and opened the gate. The bull was running over at us, and I threw both Nancy and Julie through the open gate soon following them and closing it behind me.

            

I held both of their hands as we made our way back to the house. “Mama,” Nancy said, “what about the tree? We can’t just leave it there.”

            

“It will be fine. The cows won’t go near the fence,” I reassured her. “Once your papa gets home I’ll send him out to fetch it. Then we can set it up and decorate it with all of the pretty ornament and icicles, okay?”

            

She nodded, though she didn’t seem convinced. We got back to the house and I sent Nancy and Julie to go change their clothes. Nancy had to help Julie since she was so young, but she had done so on occasion before. I started to cook supper.

            

“Is papa gonna be back soon?” Nancy asked, sitting down at one of the chairs by the kitchen table. I briefly turned from the stove.

            

“I’m sure he will,” I responded.

            

Nancy waited in that chair, not making a sound, for me to finish making the food. I went to find Julie and sat her down at the table. As we were eating, Nancy would look up at the clock and then eat more, then look up at the clock, and then eat even more.

            

“Don’t fret about it,” I told her. “He will be home soon.”

            

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, my husband walked through the front door. 

“Papa!” Nancy exclaimed, running up from the table and giving him a hug. “We went and we were trying to get a tree, and one was little and ugly, and one was really huge, and one was so perfect that we cut it down and we were bringing it back but then the cows were there and the bull started running at us so mama threw us out of the fence and we ran away but we had to leave the tree and I didn’t wanna leave the tree and we need you to go back and get the tree!” she told him, all in one breath.

            

“It’s okay dear, come and have supper first,” I said. He grabbed a plate of the food and joined us at the table, along with Nancy. Once he was done, he got his hat from his office room and went out to get the tree.

            

The house was completely silent as we waited for him to return. We waited for what felt like much longer than it had actually been. The minutes seemed to feel like hours. Finally, we heard him come in through the back door and carry the tree all the way into the living room, where the stand was already waiting.

            

We spent our evening decorating the tree and I hadn’t seen Nancy happier, at least not since last Christmas. After it was lit and covered in ornaments, papa told me he just threw the tree and wheelbarrow over the fence. I decided that day that I was never going to go without him to take the girls to find a Christmas tree again.

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In tribute to my grandmother who, though she now probably can't remember this story herself, has been immortalized by the fantastic internet.