4 Days Until Christmas!

Christmas trees are ubiquitous signs of holiday cheer, and in my family, nothing was more cheerful and horrifying, than getting and putting up a Christmas tree. In a previous post I mentioned that my mom was a bit of a snob when it came to her luminarias. She's the same way with her tree. And she raised her children to be snobs about trees too. Or at least we were when we were younger (and weren't the ones paying for the trees!).

While shopping for Christmas trees it was always about getting a tree that was tall, but not so tall it wouldn't fit, and full, but not so full that the big ornaments wouldn't sit between the boughs, and then it had to survive for the weeks leading up to and after Christmas. Not too big an order.

(Side Note Funny Story: One year when I was home from college, my brothers, sister and I piled into Mom's Suburban to go find a Christmas tree, first year without Mom and Dad in tow. We drove to Los Lunas, and out towards Bosque Farms. There was a house with a huge lot full of trees, so we parked in front of the house, got out and started looking. Can't remember which one of us it finally dawned on, but turns out it was just a house, with a front yard full of pine trees, NOT a Chritsmas tree lot! We got a good laugh out of that as we ran back to the car!)

The horrifying part of putting up a Christmas tree, after Dad has sawed the bottom off, and finally got the tree to stand up straight, was when Mom pulled out the lights! Our solarium used to be closed off by double French doors. I remember Mom would close herself off in the solarium with the tree and the lights, and we were not allowed to talk to her until she was done. Every year, when she would unwrap the tree, she would painstakingly coil the lights up, nice and untangled, and the next year when she'd pull them out of the box, the light fairies, elves, or whatever other demonic creature lived in our Christmas boxes, would have tangled them all up again, and stole some of the bulbs!

When Marshall and I bought our first tree all those years ago, I finally understood her plight and aggression. Needless to say after many years of fresh cut trees at Mom and Dad's and live trees at mine and Marshall's, both our households are the proud owners of fake trees! My sister even has a BEAUTIFUL white tree that she "Seuss-es" up each year.

While Marshall and I plan to go back to the live tree at some point (I am allergic, and breakout every time I touch the boughs while decorating), I am very much enjoying my pre-lit, stick it back in its box, don't have to vacuum up after it, burn a pine-scented candle in the house and you wouldn't even know its fake, Christmas tree.