The Ceremonial Christmas Tree Burning

My family used to have a New Year’s Eve tradition that I dubbed “The Ceremonial Christmas Tree Burning.” We would set up the christmas tree in the snow on the front lawn, douse it with gasoline, and watch it burn.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

We lived out in the country and when you’re out in the country the easiest way to dispose of things is to burn them. The christmas tree was getting burned either way. Either on the bonfire pit or, more enjoyably, out on the front lawn. (The bonfire pit was in the backyard and couldn’t be seen from the comfort of the living room windows.)

So the tree gets propped up in the snow. (Back in those days the snow began before Halloween and didn’t stop till April.) My stepdad would douse it with gasoline out of the little red gas can and then trail a line back a safe distance so he could light it.

Then, the big moment. Light the match, toss it onto the gasoline trail. Then WOOSH! The fumes would create a fireball, engulfing the tree, but also rolling out in blue flames across the flat, fresh, snow. It was delightful and terrifying the first time it happened.

But, that terror led to a magical discovery. If you drew pictures or words with the gasoline in the snow and lit it, it would burn blue flames for a minute or so. I thought I would be cute and I wrote out the year in the snow. I messed it up and wrote the old year instead of the new one, and made it worse trying to correct it. Fast forward till June when I’m mowing the lawn and trying to figure out the weird dead grass shapes. Oops, gasoline on snow will kill your grass for at least a couple years. That error haunting me the rest of the summer, and apparently the rest of my life.