Christmas in August?

This is August, right? It is August? I want to ask and establish that up front.

I realize too that this has been a very odd year, so that perhaps the months don't mean so much this time around the calendar. But this is August, correct?

As I took my daily constitutional this morning I saw all kinds of bulk trash on the street curbs. Nothing special there: Friday is our trash pickup day here in Woodbridge, and every other Friday is bulk trash day. This is simply the other Friday.

However, what caught my attention was, not one, not two, not even only three, but four live Christmas trees (well, the remains of live trees I should say) set out for pickup. Okay, maybe one was not from Christmas. But the other three had the tree stands still attached to the trunks at the base. 

Were they left from Christmas in July festivities? One might suppose such. Yet two were so brown and dried out that I must imagine they were left about, perhaps in basements, since the real deal in December. 

So, Christmas in August? Did I miss the memo?

Christmas 1972

It was, I think, Christmas 1972. I'm not really sure anymore as even I was still young then, but I do know that it was the only Christmas which me Grandpa and Grandma Hutchins from North Carolina spent in Detroit.
The living room was dark except for the lights of the Christmas tree. I was sitting alone on the couch when Grandpa had come into the room and sat opposite of me. And that was it. We sat there, never exchanging a word, for what in my mind seemed hours.
I'll never forget it. It felt to me then and now like the best time we ever had together. Oh, we got along great (it was a sorry man who could not get along with Clarence Malachi Hutchins) and had many good discussions and good visits over the years. Yet that night is my favorite time with him, my favorite memory.
How a house with 11 people could have stayed so still, so quiet while he and I sat there I don't know. I'm not sure we even looked at each other. We looked at the tree with the softly glowing lights. It is etched in our history.