No, I’m not talking about boobs this time, OK? This is a family-rated website, period. While I know my children will require years of professional psychiatric intervention, partly due to my website discussions, descriptions, and transcriptions of their conversations, sparkling moments, innocence, accomplishments, and complete stupidity, their psychotherapy won’t be needed because I’ve exposed them to R- or X-rated material. You have to draw the line somewhere, and that’s where mine happens to be. In wide-point Sharpie.
Trees. I’m talking about Real or Fake Christmas TREES.
I bring up this all important philosophical question because as I type this, I am watching hubby put up the pre-lit artificial tree that we bought last year. I’ve taken on an official observer role for now, as my exertion to this point in the day has triggered my asthma, and that, in conjuction with this whole upper respiratory thing I’ve got going on, dictates that I rest a bit, lest I end up sicker than the proverbial dog tomorrow. I realize how little-old-lady-like that sounds, really I do, but it simply is the reality of my immune system (IS), which flickers like a flame in a calm conditions and windstorms alike. Sometimes my body’s defenses are brazen enough to heat up to shine straight and tall, but more often their flame flickers weakly, making my body the ideal host for whatever virus or bacteria happens to be lurking.
To take full advangtage of this little tangent I’ve started, I’m sure you’d be terribly interested to hear that I have a mildly educated guess about why I get sick all the time. I blame my IS problems on having chronic urinary tract infections when I was little (nobody’s fault); if my memories are accurate, I was on antibiotics quite regularly for several years. In my late teens and twenties, all the flaws of my sinus cavities (definitely hereditary) were exploited by bacteria at least monthly, warranting, you guessed it, more antibiotics. [Which is why, right now, while my teeth hurt and my eye sockets are experiencing that dull but unending pressure that defines a sinus infection, I’m really jones’ing for some Augmentin XR or Avelox.] I theorize that the frequent antibiotic use during critical immune system development years plus my unlucky draw in my parents’ gene pool (I missed the line where they handed out powerhouse mitochondria and various immune-building aspects of the human cell), condemned me to a life of allergies, asthma, and frequent illness. I got an extra large portion of intellect, but that endowment doesn’t change the fact that I’m sick a lot.
But I digress. Where were we? Oh, the tree. And the tree PROCESS.
So. I grew up near a Christmas tree farm, owned and operated by a friend’s family for two generations. I helped trim and plant a couple of times, and while growing any plant has always struck me as a little magical, the hard work that went in to keeping the spuce and pine healthy and well-shaped made me view the Christmas tree selection and decorating process in an almost sacred light. That’s how I viewed it as a kid, anyway.
Back then, I couldn’t have possibly forseen that I would own a faux fir. But we got a fabulous deal on it, seriously. And while I’m optimistic that this will be the last tree we’ll ever have, money’s only a small portion of the reason why I’m happy to haul my fake tree out of the basement each December. While there is still no denying the strong tradition involved with choosing a tree, is it really a necessary tradition? A meaningful one? Let’s dissect this a little, shall we?
So in Scenario A, you’re on some “lot” with a bunch of other lemming-like suburbanites [we’re in my head here, OK], standing there shivering and chattering in overpriced Columbia and NorthFace attire, wondering how their ancestors withstood let alone thrived through such conditions with only wool and muslin. The Real Tree pursuers all wait unsheltered in the frigid wind-chill, using the weather-induced huddling body language to minimize the risk of social interaction. A mimimum of 30 minutes passes to get the opportunity to have your Mastercard or Visa swiped by an underpaid teenager who, under the best of circumstances is hormonal and moody.
There is another option, let’s call it Scenario 2: the “cut your own” field where you get to wade through a few feet of snow. Let’s say that crossing the acres you need to travel that you fall only twice, so only half of you is wet by the time you get to employ a dangerous tool you are largely unfamiliar with while standing in a drift of snow up to your hips. Don’t forget that by now, you’re feeling a bit shaky and unsteady after having carried one child on your shoulders and another on your back the past half-mile, biting the insides of your cheek most of the way to keep yourself from acting on the unrelenting impulse that’s telling you to fill the third one’s mouth full of snow to see how long it would break the unabating bawling caused by cold, wet feet.
Now, to emulate the kind of journalistic “fair” the American media machine decided should be standard, in this you-do-all-the-work scenario, there are some neat places around our area who try their best to make your payment process memorable, plying you with hot chocolate and hearty conversation. Of course, your fingers, assuming you haven’t lost any while using the saw – not much use for one of those during the course of the 60 hours you spend between commuting and cubicle land now, is there? – are completely numb, so when you’re handed the steaming mug, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll scald the he** out of your tongue in your zeal to imbibe some warmth, or your fingers will simply go on strike, unable to deal with combination of uncontrolled climate conditions and manual labor, and, lacking ability to properly grasp anything, you’ll douse yourself and whoever’s nearby with scalding hot liquid. Oh, and the conversation? At this point, you’re having a tough time constructing a sentence not strewn with cuss words. Not the best time for holiday banter with the folks who’ve convinced you this was going to make such a great memory and then charged you more than the cost of a tank of gas to experience the joy.
No matter where you get your Real tree, after you’ve purchased the ozone-creating life you’ve just sacrificed your own selfish enjoyment, you have to get it home. Let’s stick with Scenario 2 here: Your tongue still burns, you’re colder than you can ever remember being, and now all three kids are somewhere between sobbing and wailing. And you need to go toe-to-trunk with this pokey, sticky thing that’s at least twice your width. Four bungy cords and a few feet of nylon rope seemed adequate when you were in your garage a few hours back, but in sizing up the situation now, you realize you hadn’t really quite thought the whole thing through. But (back to our idyllic “balanced” reporting) if you can endure a few more verbal exchanges that barely pass for conversation, the nice people who own the place will make up for all the tie-downs you forgot, and heft your Real tree on top of your vehicle to boot.
Too bad they won’t be nearby when it falls off, 4 miles down the road.
After finally making the 12 miles home barely driving 20 mph, the real fun starts. As much as you’d like a little (or a large?) Christmas toddy upon pulling into your driveway, you still have the bulk of the painful process to go. Honestly, the way a person blocks out the agony of this task reminds me of how we women block out the unpleasantness of having babies – how you forget pregnancy’s impact on your body, not to mention the delivery and post-partum messes (yes, I know I am blessed to have children and that conceiving and delivery are miracles. I’m just not one to gloss over the discomfort, pain, blood, misery, and sleep-deprivation that peppers the miraculous parts.). I mean, I don’t recall ever having a conversation anything like this:
“Let’s go chop/saw down a goregeous living thing, fight with it until we’re exhausted, and then, finally home, let’s see how much damage we can cause to our own home! We’ll strategically slather pitch/sap on our freshly painted walls and make a real party of covering the carpet with bits from the outdoors that under no other circumstances would we let in the house. And our “cherry on top” of this sundae of fun? We’ll finally get to re-aquaint ourselves with our Little Green Machine, spending hours using harmful chemicals, attempting to wipe away all traces of the fact that we just dragged a large ex-living conifer across our carpeting. Can you hardly STAND the excitement??”
Oh! And I forgot about the glorious three cardinal moments of mystery:
- How much sawing and chopping is required to fit the trunk into your wobbly tree stand.
- How much sugar water you’ll spill on your heirloom tree skirt over the course of trying to pretend you haven’t got a 6-ft fire hazard in your main living space.
…and the grand finale…
- How many branches are broken on the darned thing after you’ve dragged from it’s birthplace, all but scotch-taped it to your vehicle, bounced it on the road, and forced it through at least two doorways never designed to accept such a piney girth.
Well, as you may have guessed by now, quite some time ago hubby and I came to the unspoken agreement that we simply didn’t consider this hideous holiday stress and mess to be critical to our Christmas tradition. Oh, and if I miss “the great pine smell,” Yankee Candle Company has me covered. Yes, chosing the Fake option has definitely been one of our better decisions – superseding several vehicle choices, my home flooring choices, and countless other blunders I’ve (let’s leave hubby out of this for the sake of marital harmony) commited through the years. Oh, and as a bonus to avoiding all the pain, expense, and hassle described above? I figure the trees we’re letting live help to offset the burgeoning carbon footprint of my family of 5 so effortlessly produces.
Ed. Note: This satirical piece makes absolutely no reference, real or implied, to the tree farm of a wonderful woman I once worked with.
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I, rather, Judy bought a fake fir from Lowes and covered it with 7 strings of lights that stayed on for about 4 hours before the overloadedd circuit caused the tree to go black. She’s taking th tree back. Not that it’s the tree’s fault the lights went out, it’s just that it took her 7 days to put those strings on and they’re burnt to a crisp. Who can afford to go through that again? I enjoyed your story about xmas tree’s. You really did nail it. I think your writing skills are excellent, I’m very glad your doing this and I will definitly buy your book, if I’m still alive.