The Perky Christmas Tree

A few years back when all my kids were creating homes and lives of their own, I decided to trade the “real” Christmas tree tradition we’d always practiced as a family to a lower maintenance option. We bought our first pre-lit artificial tree with the intention that each year, we’d simply bring the tree up from the basement, reassemble, plug it in and voila – Christmas would be alive and well in the Romer house.

The lower maintenance option turned out not to be so low maintenance. That first tree lasted three years, two of them with lights that didn’t work. So, there we were again stringing lights on a tree already strung with bum lighting.

This year I purchased a new pre-lit tree, and the weekend after Thanksgiving I awoke to my husband and daughter assembling the festive holiday tree with Christmas music playing merrily along. I was so happy to have a new tree. Finally, all would be well in the Romer Christmas tree world. After some sprucing to the flattened branches just out of the box, we plugged the tree in. I was expecting some brilliant white lights, but instead we were given a very extensive light show.

First there was the multi-color fading, then the soft white light steady, Then, there was the bright white blinking and the multi-light steady. According to the tree remote control, there’s a white/multi combo setting where every light in every color does everything from blink to fade to pop over and over again. Apparently Christmas tree light technology has come a long way.

Because we still had a post-Thanksgiving household of people, the tree remained in demo mode for most of the day just because I wasn’t paying much attention. The cycle of lighting options remained on repeat for hours. Finally, my bleary-eyed 3 week post-partum daughter-in-law, exhausted from lack of sleep said to me as she continued to rock her newborn, “Anne, can you do something about this tree?  I’m getting nauseous from the these lights in the throes of an identity crisis.”

And so began the saga of the tree with its own version of attention deficit disorder. I pulled out the instructions, followed them multiple times in order to reset the light options. Each of us took a turn in counting to 5 while pressing the remote control buttons as directed in the instructional troubleshooting step 3. I called the customer service number, remained on hold for 13.5 minutes only to find out the customer service center wasn’t open. How can an artificial Christmas tree company not have customer service open the weekend after Thanksgiving?

It wasn’t until dusk the next day when I had a chance to call the customer service hotline again. Anticipating a long wait time, I decided to use my ear pods and spend my hold time walking around the neighborhood. Despite the annoying hold music streaming in my ears, I enjoyed the various light displays strung along nearby roof tops and draped from outdoor fences. So many illuminated Christmas trees were visible from neighborhood windows. And then, there it was – through a front window, I saw my neighbor’s tree fading from white lights into brilliant multi-colored lights. I couldn’t believe there was another tree so nearby in demo mode.

All in all, the story of my overperforming tree has a happy ending. As I type, my tree is still switching light gears every few seconds as I wait for a shipment to arrive with a replacement piece that should hopefully solve the problem. In the meantime, I’m getting used to the quick step of changing lights of my new Christmas Tree. Who knew a perky tree could be so infused with Holiday surprise?