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Deck the boughs -- though it could be folly

High ceiling, tall tree add up to a 'ludicrous' holiday tradition for a Minnetonka family.

By JENNA ROSS, Star Tribune

Last update: December 18, 2008 - 10:42 AM

Most people put tinsel on their Christmas tree by hand, strand by glittering strand. The Johnsons shoot it on -- bazooka-style.

"The holidays, you have to do something ludicrous," Sofia Johnson said. "Otherwise ... "

"They're not special," her husband, Mark, finished.

Early in the life of this house, built by Mark two decades ago, one of the three Johnson children noted that it had room for a very tall tree. So they got one. Decorating it has evolved into a big, strange tradition.

Each December, the Johnsons invite relatives, friends and anyone else who's game to don a climbing harness, step up a 32-foot extension ladder and help trim their towering tree.

Even before it bristled with hundreds of ornaments, this year's tree was a sight. It's a skinny thing, but at 23 feet, no tree stand can hold it. ("Trust me, we tried," Mark Johnson said.)

Jobs for all, even 'hookers'

It took a 5-gallon pail, five wire lashings and no small amount of ingenuity to brace it against the Johnson's living room wall, which is just tall enough.

As guests entered the Minnetonka home on Saturday, many quickly craned their necks, searching for the tree's top.

"Holy cow," laughed Denise Guelker, 25, as she spotted decorators on high, tethered to climbing ropes held taut by two men from the second floor.

Everyone who comes gets a job.

"You have to be useful as well as ornamental," Sofia Johnson warned a 20-something using his iPhone.

In one corner, folks with Christmas sweaters and gray hair -- anchored by Mark's mother, Betty Johnson -- attached hooks to shiny, glittered and glass ornaments, lined them up on wire hangers and hung those hangers on the smallest of three ladders in the room -- the staging area.

They call themselves "the hookers." Betty's the "head hooker," she pointed out.

The dull clink of the ornaments, plucked from 14-gallon storage containers, met the constant refrain of the doorbell, as cousins, friends from Girl Scouts, neighbors, fellow teachers and foreign exchange students filled the house.

Soon those sounds were lost amid laughing, shouts of "on belay" and -- suddenly -- brass and string instruments playing Christmas carols.

Tinsel, not Santa, is the star

Santa showed up, ornaments fell from the boughs and people tasted green-tea cookies for the first time. But the people who had been to this party before knew more was coming. The evening's climax: tinsel.

They used to blow the tinsel up onto the tree through straws until they were dizzy. They upgraded to an Electrolux on reverse. After that vacuum ate too much tinsel, they invested in a Shop-Vac.

Late Saturday night, Mark Johnson and others began undoing the climbing ropes and lowering the extension ladder, making room. At 10 p.m., someone turned off the lights except those on the tree, now sagging under the ornaments' weight.

Mark attached a 5-foot-long tube to the end of the vacuum.

Guests took turns feeding tinsel through the contraption's mouth and aiming as it spit it through the tube out, onto the tree.

From all corners of the house -- upstairs, along the stairs, gathered in the living room -- people cast their eyes upward, their faces lit by twinkling red, blue, purple lights.

They ooo'ed and ahh'ed as the tinsel flew. Soon the tree was covered, and the Shop-Vac quieted. The crowd clapped and cheered.

Chi Zhang, a foreign exchange student from Hefei, China, watched, wide-eyed.

"That is the best idea I have ever seen before," he said. "I have to ask my mom to get a camera."

Jenna Ross • 612-673-7168

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