A Christmas Tree Story
For all those who’ve been counting the days till Christmas since mid-July, you must be so happy it’s December. I am too. I like the Christmas preparations and anticipation to gather again with family. Like many of you, the tradition of putting up the Christmas tree is the initial gesture to welcoming all things Holiday season.
A few years ago, my husband and I decided to embrace a new phase in our lives and forgo going to the local Optimist’s Christmas Fraser Fir sale, and purchase a real-looking pre-lit tree we could use year after year. We traded the fresh pine smell for a bit more ease. Letting go of authenticity was a trade-off. No more untangling of light strands, no more shedding of pine needles, no more watering the tree only to miss the tree stand basin and have a stream of spilled water beneath the expansive branches that you don’t even know is there for days. Pine needles mixed with spilled water is a problem, not to mention the sap build up on the sole of my slippers. Sticky steps are the worst.
I’m not sure why I dupe myself every post-Thanksgiving into thinking the Christmas tree decorating process will be the stuff of dreams. About early October, I start receiving Christmas catalogues full of images of Christmas trees that are just so perfectly put together. A million lights twinkling between the coordinating ornaments page after page after page. As I flip through the pages, I have fleeting dream that my Christmas tree could look just like that. Somebody tell me why or how on the earth do I think I could create anything so perfectly put together?
The morning after Thanksgiving I was able to mobilize all present to resurrect the protective wrapped tree from the basement. And to make matters even better, no one grumbled. Many hands make a 9-foot tree light.
We positioned the tree, removed the plastic tree bag which kept the branches dust free for the past 11 months. All of us tweaked the smashed branches, bringing the tree to its proper shape. All was going according to plan. And then my most favorite part, plugging in the tree, and watching our family transformed by magical twinkle. Well, at least that’s the way it happens in the last scene of every Hallmark Christmas movie. Eggnog awaits, right? Well, that’s the idea, except in our house it never works that way.
Everyone stood back while I found the plug buried in the lower branches. With “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” playing in the background, I plugged the tree in and voila . . . half the tree remained dark. In my almost perfect Christmas moment, the Grinch met the movie “Christmas Vacation”. “Bah humbug” met “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and I was left to wonder, how can it be that only half the lights work?
This is when I wish someone in my family was an electrician.
Yet, because the season calls us to find joy despite, I returned to the basement and found the box of tangled tree lights. I found myself sitting on the floor as in years’ past unwinding the jumbled mess of lights. No matter how things change, the more they stay the same.
It took a bit of creative threading, and a willingness to let go of the catalogue worthy expectation of perfection once again, but I am happy to report the tree is plugged in and with a bit of supplemental untangled magic, from a distance all looks as it should be.
The moral of the Holiday story is this. Don’t look at Christmas catalogs, band-aid lights are perfectly acceptable, and imperfection always make a good story. Happy decorating everyone