The Christmas of 1972 was one that I will always remember. My sister Sheryl, really wanted to have a flocked Christmas tree, however, they were expensive, at least more expensive then Dad wanted to fund. Sheryl found a flock-it-yourself kit and talked Dad into buying it. The kit was a bit complicated, as I remember it. It came with an attachment that hooked up to our vacuum cleaner. It mixed water with the flocking powder as it sprayed it onto the tree, so it would stick to the needles when dry. Food coloring could be mixed with the water to make a pink, blue, yellow etc. tint to the flocking. We chose blue, for some reason, it may have been a popular color that year. When we got the water mixed up and the attachment, with the flocking powder in it, attached to the vacuum, we turned on the vacuum to try it out. Nothing happened! The vacuum was going, and no flocking was coming out of the nozzle. We tried everything we could think of to make it work. We checked the connections and turned it on and off several times. We did however manage to get Dad’s attention and he came over to see if he could help us figure out what was wrong. As he was looking directly at the nozzle, with the vacuum going, it decided to let loose. We shut the vacuum off and looked up. Dad was flocked! He was covered in light blue flocking, from his head to his stomach. Sheryl and I looked at each other, not quite sure how to react to the sight before us, (Dad didn’t always take things like this well) when Dad started laughing, we both couldn’t contain ourselves any longer and we laughed till we cried. Dad cleaned off his glasses and removed his shirt and we finished flocking the tree without any more problems. We did, however, gain a Christmas memory that will last a lifetime!
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