Mater! And the Dreadful Fate of unwanted Christmas trees

Christmas is only a few days away! It feels insane, really, because time just shouldn't be moving this fast.

I found Mater, the tow truck from the Pixar movie Cars, at a local tree lot next to Target. I'm a huge fan of the first movie, and if you haven't seen Tokyo Mater, the animated short, you're missing out. It's simply brilliant. So when I first saw Mater in the flesh, so to speak, I about died and ran home for a camera.

On the way to the "dollar" theater with my Dad and brother to see Puss in Boots, we were on the conversation of what happens to trees that remain unpicked after Christmas, and Steven googled it on his new fancy phone. He found this:

"They spend a very dark and forlorn Christmas eve, already

suffering from the rejection of not having been chosen to help someone

celebrate, even more depressed by knowing that the value on their tag

has been marked down. It is a horrible fate for a big or little tree

that has some growth defect that made it unattractive through no fault

of its own. And Christmas Day is no better, nor the second day of

Christmas: no more lights in the lot, feeling its wounded stump

drying out as it imagines how wonderful it would have been to be in a

family home with real candles and hearing the family joyously singing:
"O Tannenbaum" (even if it were a blue spruce or a Douglas fir)."

Merry Christmas!
Sarah