Ghosts of Christmas Trees Past

 

They still haunt me. I catch glimpses of large Christmas firs in other people’s living rooms, aglow with lights and shiny ornaments. I picture wreaths and bows and poinsettias and give a sigh. That’s what my living room used to look like. But time moved on and our family has gone through three distinct Christmas phases…

The Early Years – Yup, we used to lug a full-grown evergreen into our home each December. Our little boys’ faces beamed as those trees stood tall and proud. My mom and dad joined in as we added colored balls, red bows, and long strands of glass beads.

The boys solemnly added their own little touches made in school — cardboard cut outs of their hands and pictures of themselves, framed with popsicle sticks. Hot chocolate was served. Carols were sung. It was an event!

But then time moved on…

My boys grew from excited tots to indifferent teenagers. Randy started travelling for business and I had to beg, plead, and yes, bribe my sons to help me decorate the tree. Before I knew it, much of Christmas fell into my inbox. And that’s when I learned a hard truth about this holiday… I have a snarky, lazy side.

One year, I found myself decorating the tree alone. I stood there, grumbling and feeling sorry for myself as I hung each ornament. There had to be an easier way.

And that’s when I made my first holiday executive decision…

The Middle Years – I bought our next tree online — an artificial one. This is especially embarrassing since we live two miles from five Christmas tree farms. But I wanted something I could assemble with minimal help. This tree came in a box with three easy, stackable pieces. Lights were attached. All I had to do was plug it in and voila! Instant holiday.

My family stared in horror. Randy noted how this evergreen — instead of coming from our neighborhood — came from Taiwan. The tree became the butt of endless Christmas jokes, but I didn’t care. I loved the ease of it all.

I even bought a few other “non-organic” things like evergreen trim and fake poinsettas (which I didn’t have to still water in August). It got so I brought Christmas down from the attic each year, laid it out, and plugged it in. And from a distance (okay, a big distance) our Christmas looked almost real.

But time moved on again and those teenagers became grown men with beards and lives of their own. Randy retired.

Recently I brought down our artificial tree, by now scruffy and sad. Some of its “boughs” had fallen off and half the lights didn’t work. Even putting together those three pieces started to be a pain.

So I made another executive decision…

The Later Years — I decided to make our Christmas “fun size.” This time I would get a real tree…but a small one. Not a “Charlie Brown” icky, but a nicely shaped petite.

This time, instead of buying a live tree with two excited kids, it was just Randy and me driving to the nearest dealer down the street. “We’ll take that one,” we said, pointing to the first decent, four-foot candidate. Even I could carry it and place it in the car’s back hatch.

Because this tree is so small, everything is easier. Although I’m limited with ornament space, I’m forced to pick out only the ones that mean the most – those cardboard hands from so long ago, miniature guitars and drums, hung in honor of our musical family. I still have those strings of glass beads.

The other night I stood in the living room, taking in this little fir, all done up with its colored lights. And that’s when I realized how all the trees we’d ever had – even the most wretched — acquired a certain beauty after dark. That’s when I always felt the true magic of Christmas.

I still drive by houses and admire those big trees winking at me from the window. I see my own excited kids dancing around and my parents hanging those colored balls. I see my husband and teen sons laughing and joking over the artificial, factory-made specimen. And yes, there have been a few pot shots about the new evergreen that could sit in our kitchen sink. But that’s okay.

Maybe all of that doesn’t matter. What does matter is how each Christmas we were happy. We were together. And whatever Christmas tree we had at the moment… was just the right one.

 

 

Has Christmas changed in your house over the years? Comments are always welcome and if you like, please share.

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