Xmas War and Manufactured (?) Memory

My boss at the NU Writing Center gig wrote this:

http://www.beatthejester.com/docs/TheChristmasWar.doc

Aside from enjoying this story on its own merits, I find it exciting to imagine myself as a very young boy going to this evergreen tree lot with my grandfather some Xmas way back in the 1970s. I remember doing this, but the memory might very well be one of those manufactured childhood romanticisms that we (I) tend to construct as we (I) reach the nebulous place called adulthood.

Let’s just agree that it happened, okay? Good.

That being the case, it’s funny to consider the hell that one person must endure to provide other families with yuletide joy. Think of this story come December as you stroll through some lot of trees and scrutinize the merchandise, your brats in tow. Keep a look out for the agonized teen cursing the snow, the trees, the hellidays.