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.
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