Christmas tree has grown unwieldy

It took some doing, but the Christmas tree is finally in the house.
Admittedly, that’s a strange thing to say on Veterans Day.
But this is not an ordinary Christmas tree.
Something like 12 years ago, we bought a potted Norfolk pine from the Flower Nook as an extra decoration for the holidays. It had three or four small trunks and stood a couple of feet high. We thought of it as a bit of greenery to put in front of the fireplace.
If you’ve never encountered a Norfolk pine, it’s a little bit unusual. It’s an evergreen, but instead of being native to the north woods, it’s native to the Norfolk Islands in the South Pacific. Unlike the needles on a traditional pine or spruce, those of a Norfolk pine are soft and the branches are flexible.
For decades, it’s been popular houseplant in the U.S.
We liked ours, so we kept it. And when warm weather rolled around, we moved it outside for the summer, parking it in a corner of the patio. Then, the following autumn, we moved it back into the house and used it as a holiday piece for another year.
There was just one little problem: The darned thing kept growing.
A few years ago, the potted Norfolk was big enough that we didn’t even put up a traditional Christmas tree. We used the Norfolk instead, stringing some lights on it.
Last year, the tree had grown enough that Connie got out her pruning shears and lopped off about a foot at the top.
But that was merely a temporary solution.
This November, with frost and chilly weather in the forecast, it was time to bring in the Norfolk pine for the winter.
And it is enormous.
I’ve been staring at it for a couple of weeks, dreading the process of moving it.
Finally, we couldn’t put it off any longer.
To understand the chore, you have to understand how big the thing has become.
It now stands just short of 8 feet tall.
And at its widest, the branches spread 6 feet across.
The pot itself is heavy, and the entire thing is unwieldy.
A little hand truck helped at first, but only as a way to get the tree to the back door.
Then it was a matter of diving into the branches (thankful that the needles aren’t prickly), grabbing the pot and hoisting it up the steps. Connie moved inside and held the door, but we had to tilt the whole thing back about 30 degrees to clear the top of the doorframe.
Once it was standing tall in the kitchen, we had to lift it up just enough so that the pot wouldn’t scrape the floor and the top wouldn’t smear tree gunk onto the ceiling.
At the doorway to the family room, we paused and figured out how much furniture we’d have to move to clear a path to its resting place. Once the path was cleared, it was time to tilt the tree 30 degrees again to clear the door.
The good news is, we made it.
The Norfolk is in place, and along with another oversized plant it has given the family room the look of a greenhouse.
The Christmas lights can wait until December, but the tree is now in its winter home.
The only question now is how much it will grow between now and spring.
Anything over 2.5 more inches and it will hit the ceiling.