Appeared in print December 2007.
Round about this time of year every Tom, Dick and Harry are peddling Christmas trees, many imported from the evil north, I mean, Canada. There are tree lots all over town and in many garden centers. Churches, scouts, and other youth organizations hope to capitalize on the general insanity that blows stronger than the jet stream in these parts every December.
As parents, or just fans of all things Christmas, it is incumbent upon us to find the perfect tree to adorn with what I like to call, ‘ornamentia.’ Ornamentia includes the usual complement of glittery balls, doo-dads celebrating all the firsts (baby’s first Christmas, first Christmas in our new home, first Christmas without a mortgage payment, first Christmas on solid food, etc), and ribbons, garland, and various pre-school bean and lace treasures picked up along the way.
In my house we bore the kids silly reminiscing on every darn ornament we pull out. My aunts gave us all the ornamentia we needed to decorate our first Christmas tree as a married couple. I think we still have every single ornament too. Of course, our collection has grown to an obscene size and I’m fairly certain I’ve got enough to decorate twelve trees. Each ornament has a memory attached. When I’m very old and quite demented probably my only lucid moments will come when my kids drag out these ornaments. In other words, ornamentia leads to dementia.
Nevertheless, this is a guide so first things first.
The absolute first thing one must do before embarking on a tree-hunting journey, whether to a home improvement store or 30 degree woods armed with a saw and some rope, is sit down with the spouse/children/dog and decide: Real Tree or Plastic Fake.
If you have in your household an allergy sufferer, well then, ok, Plastic Fake tree makes a certain amount of sense. However, to balance your plastic-yness, you must nicely adorn a real tree planted in the yard somewhere. It’s a moral imperative, so get on it.
On the other hand, if your family chooses a real tree you are in for a treat, or a special kind of torture. Really, it could go either way.
The second thing to do is decide where in your house the tree shall go. You must decide this BEFORE buying the tree; otherwise, you’ll end up in the garage with a circular saw, a hacked up tree trunk, and quite possibly bleeding profusely in a desperate attempt to cut down the MUCH TOO LARGE tree you picked out. But, we’re getting ahead our ourselves.
In our house, deciding where the tree should go generally involves moving all the furniture in the living room to accommodate the greatest amount of festive holiday visitors without sacrificing space or tables to put drinks on. The night before we go tree shopping the family is up late, digging under couches, reattaching wires to the entertainment center, and generally causing my husband great consternation. Then we bring up the boxes of ornamentia, stockings, and a veritable plethora of Christmas decorating crap.
Next morning, the family must tackle the third item on the list: Searching out the venue. This is a very important step. We used to be tree lot people, and tree lots serve a critical niche in the tree-buying world. We always found a nice, full tree of reasonable height and girth. It was wrapped, plopped on the car and away we went. Still, it required minutes of consideration and a good look at all the options before we go back to our first choice.
However, a certain member of our family likes the tree up for his birthday, which, being just a few days after Epiphany, isn’t so unreasonable. Unfortunately, tree lot trees just won’t last that long. They die well before January 6 and the weight of the ornaments distorts the poor thing so badly it resembles a turkey neck. It’s not good.
A few years back we decided to find a tree farm and go cut a fresh one. These trees tend to last longer for us and require less botox to maintain their youthful good looks. We put on warm coats, gloves, hats, scarves and boots and load our ropes and blankets into the car and drive the most direct route to the tree farm that passes a drive-through coffee shop where we can buy hot chocolate. We sip our too hot cocoa and listen to Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey or anything by Ella Fitzgerald during the drive.
Once at the tree farm you must learn the rules of the place. Ask the attendant and if he tells you something you don’t like, slip him a hefty tip. He’s stuck out there in the freezing weather handing out saws to idiots like me, so chances are he’ll be likely to help you later on in this saga if you need it.
This year, we went to one of the distant fields of this farm for our tree. We like a sturdy Frasier Fir and we found them. We walked up and down row after row. Each exclaiming he’d found THE TREE before discovering brown needles, a embarrassing bare spot on one side, or too short. We did this for an hour, maybe more, as my watch froze. Finally, we decided on a short, round number, which was actually the third tree we looked at 45 minutes earlier. Never mind the frostbite dear.
My husband gets down to cut the trunk with a handsaw (no chainsaws here for we hardy New Englanders), which takes all of seven minutes plus swearing.
We drag the poor tree through the lot, back to the car, and over the hill and through the woods, and well you get the point. Back at the house, we’re now in a mad dash to get the tree into some water and a bucket outside does the trick. If you wait too long to get the trunk in water after its cut, you’ll have to cut it again which sort of defeats the purpose.
After we get it inside, and fair warning, don’t freshen the paint around your door jambs until after Christmas, my husband manages the lights. This is perhaps the most important job he does all year long and he takes it very seriously. He begins by wrapping the trunk in lights and then proceeds to add many hundreds of lights to the tree. While he’s wrestling with mini-lights I prepare festive snacks for our tree trimming delight and the children chase the dog with the antler headband. Once done we put an obnoxious train under the tree. It looks good, feels traditional in the right sorts of ways, and is incredibly loud; a useful feature when someone keeps you talking on the phone too long.
Ah, the special torture of finding and decorating the Christmas tree. I used to detest the job as a kid, but now, I’m rather fond of the custom. May your Christmas be delightful, rich in joy, and as peaceful as you can get without having to administer medication.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Pull My Finger Santa
We have a Pull-My-Finger Santa. I don’t know exactly who purchased this charming treat of Christmas Cheer, though I’m sure someone had a few too many eggnogs when designing Jolly Old St. Flatulence. It may have been a Yankee Swap gift that went horribly wrong. All I know is, I have not changed the battery in three years and remarkably, that Duracell is going STRONG. My kids pull that finger four-hundred times a day from now to Christmas.
We’ve tried losing this Santa, but he keeps turning up. Last year it was my daughter’s turn to squirrel him away under her bed, in a dark corner with discarded toys probably covered in lead paint from China. She found him again, triumphantly mind you, two days ago.
There is something sacrilegious about maligning Santa’s image with a Fart-o-Claus, but at least he is amusing. What are not amusing are recent news reports attacking Christmas once again. Shopping Mall Santa’s in Australia can no longer say “Ho Ho Ho” because it might offend women?!
I’m offended someone would even think so.
Once we enter the world of extreme political correctness, Orwellian Thinkspeak takes over our lives. Well, maybe not our lives, but certainly the brains of some otherwise fine folk. Take for instance the recent cancellation of a Winchester seventh grade field trip to see Miracle on 34th Street because some parents complained about the nature of the play. In particular, Santa Claus.
Winchester fell into the rabbit hole; at least, the principal of McCall middle school did. Students and parents are disappointed because the complaints of a few turned out to affect so many. What happened to permission slips? When did field trip permission become a zero- sum game?
Heck, we haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving yet. This brings me to another round of revisionist history: Thanksgiving as a day of mourning in America, to Native Americans. Yes, Native Americans were shoved off their land and treated horribly by settlers. But the holiday is about the results of peace and cooperation between the pilgrims and the Native Americans. Why not celebrate that, try to recapture that, not only between the cultures but also in our everyday lives. Thanksgiving is more than just a chance to slave over a hot stove for two days. It is more than turkey and cranberry sauce and football.
At low moments in our lives, finding something to be thankful for is tough work. When a spouse loses a job and a family worries about making a mortgage or rent payment or putting food on the table, it is hard to be thankful. When a loved on is terribly injured or seriously ill, the fear becomes all-consuming. When someone dies, the grief can torture us into despair.
Finding something to be thankful for in those moments is not easy. Families in our community suffer today with budget busting bills, children battling cancer and other major health issues, and older residents choosing between heat and medication.
The day-to-day mundane plod can leave me frustrated with the state of my kitchen sink, annoyed by bills, or irritated by dirt tracked across a clean floor. The doodles of a four year old on freshly painted walls, the pile of laundry that faces me daily hardly seeming to diminish. However, my worries are nothing when compared to the magnitude of another.
In a rare moment of clarity, I am thankful for my sink full of dishes, because I have a family to feed. I am thankful for the dirt on my floor, the bedoodled wall, the never-ending laundry, because they represent my children who, if I’m fortunate, will someday grow up and move somewhere close by.
As a sidebar, I am thankful for my neighbors that keep their lawns meticulous, because they encourage me to do better. I am thankful for those neighbors whose yards need some work too, because they make mine look good. Well, better.
To those who find it hard to celebrate this Thanksgiving know that there are many in our communities that care about you. I talk to them. Try to take a little time this week to count your blessings, big and small. You may be surprised at how many you can count.
I plan to use the same rationale with my family when I burn the turkey. Count the blessings of your brother, your sister, your home, your family, your dog, your cat, your unburned mashed potatoes, your apple pie…
Here’s to a happy, top-button-open-on-the-pants sort of Thanksgiving.
We’ve tried losing this Santa, but he keeps turning up. Last year it was my daughter’s turn to squirrel him away under her bed, in a dark corner with discarded toys probably covered in lead paint from China. She found him again, triumphantly mind you, two days ago.
There is something sacrilegious about maligning Santa’s image with a Fart-o-Claus, but at least he is amusing. What are not amusing are recent news reports attacking Christmas once again. Shopping Mall Santa’s in Australia can no longer say “Ho Ho Ho” because it might offend women?!
I’m offended someone would even think so.
Once we enter the world of extreme political correctness, Orwellian Thinkspeak takes over our lives. Well, maybe not our lives, but certainly the brains of some otherwise fine folk. Take for instance the recent cancellation of a Winchester seventh grade field trip to see Miracle on 34th Street because some parents complained about the nature of the play. In particular, Santa Claus.
Winchester fell into the rabbit hole; at least, the principal of McCall middle school did. Students and parents are disappointed because the complaints of a few turned out to affect so many. What happened to permission slips? When did field trip permission become a zero- sum game?
Heck, we haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving yet. This brings me to another round of revisionist history: Thanksgiving as a day of mourning in America, to Native Americans. Yes, Native Americans were shoved off their land and treated horribly by settlers. But the holiday is about the results of peace and cooperation between the pilgrims and the Native Americans. Why not celebrate that, try to recapture that, not only between the cultures but also in our everyday lives. Thanksgiving is more than just a chance to slave over a hot stove for two days. It is more than turkey and cranberry sauce and football.
At low moments in our lives, finding something to be thankful for is tough work. When a spouse loses a job and a family worries about making a mortgage or rent payment or putting food on the table, it is hard to be thankful. When a loved on is terribly injured or seriously ill, the fear becomes all-consuming. When someone dies, the grief can torture us into despair.
Finding something to be thankful for in those moments is not easy. Families in our community suffer today with budget busting bills, children battling cancer and other major health issues, and older residents choosing between heat and medication.
The day-to-day mundane plod can leave me frustrated with the state of my kitchen sink, annoyed by bills, or irritated by dirt tracked across a clean floor. The doodles of a four year old on freshly painted walls, the pile of laundry that faces me daily hardly seeming to diminish. However, my worries are nothing when compared to the magnitude of another.
In a rare moment of clarity, I am thankful for my sink full of dishes, because I have a family to feed. I am thankful for the dirt on my floor, the bedoodled wall, the never-ending laundry, because they represent my children who, if I’m fortunate, will someday grow up and move somewhere close by.
As a sidebar, I am thankful for my neighbors that keep their lawns meticulous, because they encourage me to do better. I am thankful for those neighbors whose yards need some work too, because they make mine look good. Well, better.
To those who find it hard to celebrate this Thanksgiving know that there are many in our communities that care about you. I talk to them. Try to take a little time this week to count your blessings, big and small. You may be surprised at how many you can count.
I plan to use the same rationale with my family when I burn the turkey. Count the blessings of your brother, your sister, your home, your family, your dog, your cat, your unburned mashed potatoes, your apple pie…
Here’s to a happy, top-button-open-on-the-pants sort of Thanksgiving.
The Engineer Animal
By virtue of the kinds of stories I write for the Crier I often find myself talking to engineers. A veritable multitude of engineers. This is just fine, because I’m married to an engineer, my father-in-law is an engineer, nearly every male in that family is an engineer, and I can see the engineer mind in my son.
So, I ‘get’ engineers.
And there are two subgroups of the engineer animal.
One group takes the view that any imperfection in a design could cost people their lives. A poorly designed bridge will collapse. Imperfect applications of materials can cause concrete panels in tunnels ceilings to fall. A road built fast and loose will eventually sink, causing damage to automobiles and expensive repair. These engineers, like my husband and most of the engineers I talk to, are unique creatures. For example, it took my husband many months to build-in bookshelves, not because the project was hard but because the walls in our old house list way off center. When he was done with the shelves, however, the walls looked straight.
The desire to achieve perfection can be maddening. One engineer I know attempted to replace a simple valve in his shower and ended up ripping up the entire bath, putting up new everything and retiling. His wife may have wanted to commit seppuku, but that bath is beautiful.
Yes, these engineers fold their socks in a particular way, turn out the contents of their pockets in a meticulous fashion every day, and spend a tremendous amount of time planning any little project. If the design is not right, they reason, the execution will fail.
The second group of engineers includes the software wunderkinds of the world. They work fast and churn out product quickly, getting it to consumers sooner rather than later, then offering patches to correct problems. Their aim is less the design than the functionality. As long as it works, it does not necessarily matter how the programmer got there. And problems that appear down the road may be remedied, relatively inexpensively. Getting it right the first time, perfection, can mean missing the market, losing out to a competitor, or shortchanging customers.
Both kinds of engineers have their rightful place in the technological world today. But, when one crosses to the other side, woeful things can happen. Generally, when a design perfectionist engineer ends up at an internet start-up, the engineer leaves because he is burnt out or because the company finds him too slow. On the other hand, when the functionality oriented engineer ends up writing code for a military application, well, sometimes people die. As an engineer, it is important to know into which basket you fall.
I’ve tested my theory lately with engineers and so far, its resonating with every one, from the civil engineer that designed the new photo simulations for the Verizon Wireless cell phone towers at the South Fire Station (and my husband checked his proportions), to former DPW Director Toma Duhani, to even my father-in-law.
Likewise, remember this analogy when looking down the road at the upcoming budgeting process facing the Town of Tewksbury or even the design of the Lowell Junction Interchange. Careful planning and thoughtful design must punctuate the process for both undertakings.
Tewksbury’s budget task force, meeting often these days, will present its recommendations to the town in January. Then come the weeks of wrangling with numbers with the Board of Selectmen looking to implement efficiencies the task force recommends and the salesmanship of a probable override request, and perhaps even more fees. The only real question that remains is the bottom line figure. How much will it cost and how much can we save?
Simultaneously, the Lowell Junction Interchange collaboration moves forward. Environmental impact reports will come. Some sort of agreement between the towns on the shape of the interchange will emerge. Companies like Simon and RJ Kelly will push forward with their visions of mixed-use developments for their parcels of land. Resident must chime in here as well. Too often, a collective solipsism appears as apathy and ends up with folks missing the boat on opportunity.
Therefore, Tewksbury and Wilmington, start hitting those meetings. Listen to the developers, become part of the process, and heck, speak up about the changes you want to see. Change is on the horizon.
And to those readers in Tewksbury, begin by voting on Tuesday for Selectman. Three men have poured their time, energy, and money into this race. The decision may not be an easy one though I have tried to show their priorities and differences in the article this week. I’ve talked to them all and they are knowledgeable men in our community. I won’t make a recommendation, each voter must decide for him or herself. The most important part is showing up.
So, I ‘get’ engineers.
And there are two subgroups of the engineer animal.
One group takes the view that any imperfection in a design could cost people their lives. A poorly designed bridge will collapse. Imperfect applications of materials can cause concrete panels in tunnels ceilings to fall. A road built fast and loose will eventually sink, causing damage to automobiles and expensive repair. These engineers, like my husband and most of the engineers I talk to, are unique creatures. For example, it took my husband many months to build-in bookshelves, not because the project was hard but because the walls in our old house list way off center. When he was done with the shelves, however, the walls looked straight.
The desire to achieve perfection can be maddening. One engineer I know attempted to replace a simple valve in his shower and ended up ripping up the entire bath, putting up new everything and retiling. His wife may have wanted to commit seppuku, but that bath is beautiful.
Yes, these engineers fold their socks in a particular way, turn out the contents of their pockets in a meticulous fashion every day, and spend a tremendous amount of time planning any little project. If the design is not right, they reason, the execution will fail.
The second group of engineers includes the software wunderkinds of the world. They work fast and churn out product quickly, getting it to consumers sooner rather than later, then offering patches to correct problems. Their aim is less the design than the functionality. As long as it works, it does not necessarily matter how the programmer got there. And problems that appear down the road may be remedied, relatively inexpensively. Getting it right the first time, perfection, can mean missing the market, losing out to a competitor, or shortchanging customers.
Both kinds of engineers have their rightful place in the technological world today. But, when one crosses to the other side, woeful things can happen. Generally, when a design perfectionist engineer ends up at an internet start-up, the engineer leaves because he is burnt out or because the company finds him too slow. On the other hand, when the functionality oriented engineer ends up writing code for a military application, well, sometimes people die. As an engineer, it is important to know into which basket you fall.
I’ve tested my theory lately with engineers and so far, its resonating with every one, from the civil engineer that designed the new photo simulations for the Verizon Wireless cell phone towers at the South Fire Station (and my husband checked his proportions), to former DPW Director Toma Duhani, to even my father-in-law.
Likewise, remember this analogy when looking down the road at the upcoming budgeting process facing the Town of Tewksbury or even the design of the Lowell Junction Interchange. Careful planning and thoughtful design must punctuate the process for both undertakings.
Tewksbury’s budget task force, meeting often these days, will present its recommendations to the town in January. Then come the weeks of wrangling with numbers with the Board of Selectmen looking to implement efficiencies the task force recommends and the salesmanship of a probable override request, and perhaps even more fees. The only real question that remains is the bottom line figure. How much will it cost and how much can we save?
Simultaneously, the Lowell Junction Interchange collaboration moves forward. Environmental impact reports will come. Some sort of agreement between the towns on the shape of the interchange will emerge. Companies like Simon and RJ Kelly will push forward with their visions of mixed-use developments for their parcels of land. Resident must chime in here as well. Too often, a collective solipsism appears as apathy and ends up with folks missing the boat on opportunity.
Therefore, Tewksbury and Wilmington, start hitting those meetings. Listen to the developers, become part of the process, and heck, speak up about the changes you want to see. Change is on the horizon.
And to those readers in Tewksbury, begin by voting on Tuesday for Selectman. Three men have poured their time, energy, and money into this race. The decision may not be an easy one though I have tried to show their priorities and differences in the article this week. I’ve talked to them all and they are knowledgeable men in our community. I won’t make a recommendation, each voter must decide for him or herself. The most important part is showing up.
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