That’s actually what Myra-Jean said when she walked down our front steps this morning and saw:

An empty sidewalk where our Christmas tree used to be! Whoo!

(What I like best about the above picture, by the way, is the faint dirt patch — perfectly triangular in shape — the tree left behind. Clearly if it were a Peanuts character it would’ve been Pigpen. Why does that not surprise me?)

Anyway, it took three calls to the Department of Sanitation (plus, as you know, a couple of earnest prayers to the Gods who service said entity), but, dirty or not, the Yuletide shrub finally got picked up. The ironic part is, I probably would never have noticed if it weren’t for my ever-astute two-year-old, who spotted our new blank spot the second she walked out the front door. Having listened to me gripe about “the damn tree” for three weeks straight, she was probably happier than I was to see it gone at last.

But I am pretty thrilled. And relieved. That whole saw-and-yard-waste-bin thing I was going to resort to? It would have ended in blood. Or at least really bad blisters. Especially since I had to get rid of my gardening gloves when the whole Komen thing blew up.

I’d better find some new ones. My sidewalk clearly needs weeding.