What do you do with your Christmas tree?

STEP ONE: Gather as many trees sitting curbside. Tell your friends to join you in a undisclosed location in the snowy canyon...


STEP TWO: Hand held flame thrower, check. Dry Christmas trees, check. "Huston, we have ignition."


STEP THREE: Ignite quickly and get the heck out of the way, fast! These babies are going up fast!


STEP FOUR: Step back, enjoy the large inferno of Christmas cheer, then pray that the police don't see since you have no fire permit! Enjoy the good times with friends.




STEP FIVE: Be sure that you invited enough friends to help push your two-wheel drive truck out of the snow in the end! NOTE: it was a boy who drove the truck, it was a girl with a Jeep and wench that pulled him out!

This is apparently what a bunch of friends will do for fun on a cold night in the middle of winter in Utah! In my recent visit to Utah to visit with my friend Spring, I had the pleasure of joining her friends on this grand adventure. A couple of the guys gathered trees from the side of the street and hauled them out to a secluded spot in the middle of a snowy canyon north of Salt Lake City. Boys with toys will always have a way to start a fire! It was amazing how fast the dry needles "whooshed" into a big ball of fire with heat being felt a good 10-20 feet away! It took more than two hours to get it to burn all the wood. During this time it was just fun to watch the fire, visit and huddle up to it's heat in the dead cold of winter. As the fire began to die down, the fuel all gone, it was cold. It was far too cold for my thin AZ blood. We decided to pack it up, problem was the guy who brought 11 of the trees in his truck had driven his 2-wheel drive into snow that needed 4-wheel drive. It took 3 girls, 1 guy and one girl in her Jeep with a wench to get him pulled out! Good times. Girls won in this one, but had the guy not driven his truck into the snow, we would have had to haul the trees a football field length to the burn site. So I guess we are still equally yoked! I had a blast getting to know new friends. Thanks guys!