Christmas finally ends with a chain saw

Silverton's Christmas traditions are right out of a Norman Rockwell painting and we could barely believe it the first year we were here, but now we're hooked and seem to get deeper into it each year. Right after Thanksgiving, a huge 60 foot tree is erected in the middle of Main St (right outside Tom's office window, as it happens). There's actually a manhole in the middle of the street for the trunk (chain saws needed to trim it to fit) and all kinds of wires connected to near-by buildings for stability. It is decorated and the town gathers on the first Friday in December to sing carols and officially light the tree (think Santa in a cherry-picker waving magic fairy dust). In addition to this program, another tree is decorated at the "Santa house", where Santa holds court for the month of December. This tree seems much smaller and it is. But, as I found out when they were looking for a volunteer to remove this smaller tree, it's not all that small. Foolishly, I offered to haul the Santa house tree up to our burn pile - "I'll just throw it on top of my SUV on the way home". Ah, no the tree is 20' - you'll need a chainsaw and your truck. Well, we had a chainsaw and a truck, so I'd get Tom to help me. Yesterday, we sawed the thing in half, sawed off the pallet and supports that were holding it up and barely fit it into 2 loads, up to the burn pile - the base of the tree was almost 12" across and it weighed a ton! All this was just prep work - next year we'll help put up and take down the big tree on Main St... guess I'd better learn how to use the chain saw!