The Christmas Tree Caper

We had the strangest thing happen, and in Shane's words, "You have to blog about this." Yesterday we took the ornaments and lights off our Christmas tree, and Shane dragged it out to the curb. This is proper garbage protocol here; we've seen neighbors with trees at their curbs as well. Shortly after, we went to get some groceries. When we got back home, our tree was gone. It was a windy morning, and on the chance that it rolled down the hill or into a neighbor's yard, we drove around looking for it. It was nowhere to be seen, so we just chalked it up as one of those strange things that happens to us on occasion. We thought maybe the garbage people came by (although that seems strange on New Year's Day), or maybe a landscaping company was picking them up to put through a chipper and use as mulch or something. I don't know--I mean what else could it have been? Well, this morning, Shane went outside to warm up his car, and he came right back in and said, "Go look in the driveway." I knew immediately what I would see: our Christmas tree. It was laying dead-center at the end of our driveway, and it had no needles on its bottom half. It had branches but no needles. I was completely creeped out by this. I am pretty sure that the tree must have blown down into a neighbor's yard, and they knew it was ours and returned it. But we looked around pretty well yesterday and didn't see it. Maybe someone borrowed it. If any of you reading this have any information, you can call in an anonymous tip.