A Christmas Bargain
I don’t like to barter.
I think that my least favorite thing to do is to buy a new car. I am sure that I never have gotten the very
best price; as long as I think the salesperson is being reasonably honest with
me, I am satisfied. My father, on the
other hand, relished buying cars. He
would talk for months about how he pressured the salesperson into giving him a
great deal. My father’s penchant for
getting a good deal even carried over into Christmas tree shopping. A couple of weeks before Christmas we all
piled in the car one evening to make the round of all the Christmas tree
lots.
I can’t ever recall a pleasant evening of relaxed tree
shopping. It seemed that it was always
extremely cold. And it was never during
the day, assuming the lots would have been open on Saturdays at least; it was
always after supper and in the dark. As
I think back on it, I think those were variables that were part of my father’s
master plan to get the best price possible.
I think he wanted the weather to be cold enough that the person watching
the lot didn’t want to be out very long either.
And there were less customers in the evenings which meant that the
salesperson would be more anxious to make any kind of sale.
We never bought a tree at the first lot, or the second, or
the third, although we did at times circle back to a lot that we had visited earlier. I learned later that part of
my father’s strategy was showing the salesperson that he was willing to walk
away – after all, he had already showed that he was willing to do just that at
some point earlier in the evening.
The tree needed to be a balsam. Tradition in the Wagnitz household was a
short-needled, real tree. The tree
didn’t need to be perfect. Again, I am
convinced now that too was part of the plan.
It had to be a tree that the salesperson would be somewhat happy to be
rid of. That didn’t mean that it was a
Charlie Brown tree; by no means, just that some imperfections were required.
When my father finally settled on a tree, he would call us
all over. I thought at the time that he
wanted us to be part of the final decision, but as I reflect back on it, I
think we were the master key to his negotiation strategy, because now was the
moment that he had been waiting for – negotiating the price of said tree. I think the salesperson could have offered to
give my father the tree for free and it would not have been a low enough price to
force my father into agreeing to a first offer.
I couldn’t write the bartering session down now as I don’t
remember the actual words that went back and forth. But I do remember that at some point my
father would get all exasperated and just blurt out, “Get back in the car kids,
we aren’t buying this tree.” It’s
amazing how fast a little heart set on the Christmas joy of having a tree to
take home can break when you are sent, empty-handed, back to the car. Tears gushed.
Loud sobs filled the air. We
trudged back to the car in defeat. Car
doors slammed. The car was filled with
wailing. Christmas apparently wasn’t
happening for us this year.
My father though never actually got in the car. The salesperson, who had followed, at least
part way, and he began to talk again. My
father would shake his head; the salesperson would wave his arms. But then heads would shake in affirmation and
my father would get out his wallet, cold hard cash was exchanged and the tree
was lashed to the car with twine. It was
if Superman, Roy Rogers or Matt Dillon had saved the day – or Christmas - just
when all hope seemed to be lost.
To seal the deal the salesperson always went back into the
trees and emerged with a handful of tree branches that my father stuffed in the
trunk. The branches were needed so that my
father could convert our less-than-perfect tree into “O Tenenbaum”. I think for my father that it was almost as
important that our tree would be “some assembly required” as it was that he
could feel that he got a good price on it.
He would put the tree in the stand and then identify all the empty
spaces. Then he would get his drill,
drill a hole in the trunk of the tree and insert one of the extra branches to fill in those empty spaces. We always said that only God, and my father,
could make a tree.
When my own children were little we always went somewhere
where we could select and cut down our own tree. I still will take a balsam over any other
kind of tree. But the kids did help make
the final decision and when they were old enough, they got to saw the tree
down. I always paid the “sticker price”.
I preferred paying a few extra dollars, if necessary, over the tears. I can’t say that I ever got a bargain on a
Christmas tree, but that’s OK. Hopefully
my father is not too disappointed in me.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Rebecca McKenzie on Unsplash
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