If you want to have fun this Christmas here is what you can do.

First you and your big brother walk about a half mile in frigid weather to a tree lot on the 24th and buy two scraggly trees, pay the man 50 cents and carry them home trying not to drag them on the cement.

Take them down in the basement and find your Dad's brace and bit and bore some holes in the trunk of the best tree and cut off some good branches from the extra tree and insert into holes you bored.

Then you have one slightly misshapen but beautiful Christmas tree.

Then find an apple box, someplace. You may have to dump a bunch of your Dad's file folders on his workbench.

Don't worry. There is probably nothing of value in the box, and your dad won't even notice because he only goes down there to build a fire in the furnace or light the gas hot water tank on Saturday night unless the gas company has turned the gas off.

Then borrow a thingie from your neighbor kid's Dad's workshop that will cut a big hole in the bottom of the apple box and push the tree into the hole.

Then nail a piece of wood across the open bottom and nail a big nail into the board and the bottom of the tree.

Be careful when you carry the tree upstairs into the living room. A lot of needles will fall on the floor.

Limbs do not look good without needles.

Then you get some red crepe paper and cover the whole box. Make windows and doors out of cotton, sticking them on to the Santa house with flour and water paste.

Make a chimbley out of a scrap piece of 2x4 and paint it with your sister's water colors to make it look like bricks.

Then you wind some long garland made of popcorn round and round and hang a bunch of ornaments on the limbs.

Don't do this barefooted as sometimes they break and cut your feet.

Next, hang a hundred icicles from the limbs.

Do this slow and careful for a few minutes and try to delay just throwing them on hoping they look okay.

Then put the glass spire on the top and the whole thing will look beautiful.

PS. If you don't have the fifty cents, your big brother may have to climb the big fir tree in the vacant lot next door and cut the top off and drop it down.

He will not mind. He is a good climber for a 12 year old.