O tannenbaum

Today was the day! Ol was out with friends, Tom was in WV, and Jack was being Grinchy, so I went and picked our tree out by myself. Doing so was so delightful that I gave the teenager who helped me a big tip. The tree is a concolor fir (never heard of it before, but I like its needles), and although it’s not as tall as those we usually get, it’s trunk is quite wide. To fit it in our stand, I had to rev up my chainsaw and trim a good inch and a half. I forgot how therapeutic and fun my chainsaw is.

Anyway, Jack came out and said, “I can’t believe you went without me. I really did want to go. I was just trying to be annoying.”

Well, buddy, you were.

Chastened, he helped me me carry it in, and I started in on the lights. In my opinion, a great tree has tiny white lights, tons of them, and a metric ton of colorful ornaments. Like, the tree should look tastefully bedazzled from every perspective. Today, I had a good bit of my last light strand left so dragged over a house plant and lit it too.

Ol wasn’t home yet so I couldn’t decorate much more or he would be positively outraged. My friend Katherine brings neat ornaments from far-flung places, so I put ones from Laos and China on the plant, added an okra-pod angel, and sat on my hands until I’d picked up Ol.

Ol bought Nutmeg and Ruth a present and wrapped it today so we’d have a first gift.

Once home, we turned on Christmas music and got busy. It was as wonderful as ever.

Aren’t the Enenamen fabulous? A marketer for Fleet had some real fun one day. Can you imagine being the one to create caped enema superheroes? I am so glad my dad gave these to me. The big red ball is from Tiffany, the cardinal (and the other two on the tree) are memories of Nanny and other beloved relatives who are no longer with us, and I do like to keep support for causes going year round, so let’s hear it for PRIDE and women’s rights. Also, London and New York.

a firetruck given to Jack by Mom and Dad when J was little; more PRIDE; John Deer tractor; You Are My Sunshine painted by my great aunt; Baby Yoda; Northwestern (my alma mater); the blue and white Amsterdam city scape I bought when Tom and I lived there way the heck back in 2004.

Liberty Leading the People! a homemade wreath! wine grapes! teardrops I’d given to Nanny and then got back after she died! Statue of Liberty! a sword!

Oliver did a beautiful job decorating our mantel and really, much of the first floor. And on their way back in town, Mom and Dad swung by and hung a few ornaments too. A lovely afternoon.

Walking home with an eight-foot Christmas tree

Y'all may recall that I have sometimes referred to Thanksgiving as little more than a speed bump on the road to Christmas. This year (as I noted yesterday), Thanksgiving was really wonderful, and I was grateful for the slowing down, the taking pause, the bit of tuning out I was able to do.

On Sunday, however, I could wait to start Christmas no longer. I LOVE CHRISTMAS! On went the carols, out came the decorations, up went the wreaths. The kids and I were determined to get our tree.

Someone very important to Tom, a mentor of his not much older than we are, passed away suddenly just about ten days ago. It has really shaken Tom, and our hearts ache for the wife and children this man left behind. As he mourns, I have tried to give my dear T some extra love and care and space when he needs it. On Sunday, he desperately needed to burn some stress and so I sent him to the tennis court with a bucket of balls.

In the meantime, and because T always wants a smaller tree than I feel is acceptable, the kids and I walked to a Christmas tree lot that pops up each year just around the corner from where our new house stands. Isn't that a magnificent coincidence? 

We picked out a towering fir, and emboldened by the fact that there no sibling fighting occurred during the choosing of said tree, I said, "Boys, we are awesome. Let's walk this puppy home!"

As the man helping us gave our tree a fresh cut and shook all the old needles free from its boughs, I regaled the kids with the story of the Christmas in New York in which I bought a tree, dragged it several blocks up Lexington Avenue and up the four flights of stairs to my tiny studio, and set it up in a stand ALL WHILE WEARING a skirt and heels. 

"So you see, boys, we three have got this made."

I took the trunk end while they flanked the lighter top, and we started our 0.3 mile trek home. 

People, an eight-foot fir is not a lightweight item. We were all sweating and covered with sap and Ol said a branch hit him in the penis and Jack exclaimed that he was surely acquiring a bruise and we took many breaks and I am certain people were thinking, "WTF is that family doing!?!"

At some point, Tom called and asked where we were. I told him we were walking the tree home, and he was like, "You're walking the tree home? Do you want me to bring the car?"

"No," said I. "We are intrepid."

About 45 seconds later, he showed up in the car. We had gone approximately 0.2 miles. My arms appeared to have cramped into 45-degree limbs, and so I agreed to let T put the trunk of the tree into the trunk of the car, and then I insisted on walking behind the car so I could hold up the top of the tree so it didn't become disfigured in any way. 

You can imagine what this parade looked like. One dear neighbor put her hands on her hips and just laughed. I mean, what else would you do? I said, "Can you tell we didn't really think this through?"

And we all laughed together.

And now our tree is up and perfect and it makes Oliver and me deeply joyous and Jack a little bit less so, and I think Tom is totally ambivalent but he did buy us new lights because we lost the others in the move and now instead of five strands that I had to crimp together we have just one and it's full of LEDs and those things are both so nice.

Decorating the tree is one of Oliver's favorite life activities. Here we are having just begun.

The tree is now dripping with ornaments. Most of those are treasures that elicit a range of happy memories.

The glass typewriter I gave Nanny ages and ages ago after she had a stroke and couldn't write well and so started to type letters to me? Mom gave it to me after Nanny died, and I cherish it.

The perler bead ornaments that map the kids' passions over time? I love them- from utter nonsense to Minecraft to a periodic table, they remind me of my boys' curiosity and enthusiasm.

The many fleur-de-lis I've collected and been gifted? You know just whose tree this is.

The red cardinals? Those are a tradition in Tom's extended family, and I love the sweet material depictions of all a marriage brings together. 

The stuffed felt Enemen (enema men), courtesy of a Fleet pharmaceutical rep who visited my dad twenty years ago? Those are campy vintage awesomeness.

The collection of Bronners ornaments? Those have been given to us and the boys, a new one for each over the years, by my Mom. She has beautiful and fun taste. 

And on and memorably on.

Christmas, hear me roar

I have a real "Hear me roar" feeling about Christmas trees. This feline response to them began many moons ago, when I was a singleton in The Big Apple. One December night, as I strutted home after a late evening out, high heels clap-clapping up Lexington Avenue, I was drawn into a well-lit bodega like a moth to a lamp. Out front was a small selection of Christmas trees, and, as I had my own place for the first time in New York, I had to buy one. A lovely man cocooned my chosen fir into its transient netting, sold me a cheap stand too and seemed convinced by my assertions that of course I could lug it all home. My skirt and tights and heels and new purchases were no match for my enthusiasm and will, and I think he got that.

Off I went, further north up Lex, dragging my tree behind me along the cold sidewalk. Up the flights to my fifth-floor walk-up. And then to the corner where my fir regained legs in the red and green metal stand. On went a few decorations, enough until I could buy some more. Perhaps never had a tree made me so happy before, and, perhaps, never since. In that moment, I knew I had made it. I was supporting myself in New York City, on an educator's salary and with a Christmas tree to boot. All by myself.

Each year since, I have eagerly awaited the turn of November into the year's final month. I'm usually one of the first, of folks I know, to buy and erect our annual tree. Every year I delight in turning the Christmas carols up loud, stringing the lights and going to town with my beloved collection of ornaments.

Tom is fairly meh about the whole tree thing but my -and the kids'- enthusiasm is unbridled. They pimp the tree out to the nines, loading each branch so full that none could ever make it through the season, much less a few days. After they've had their fun and are asleep, I cull and relocate, strengthen and secure. I can always blame changes on weak branches or the pets.

In recent years, I have taken to buying the tree on my own with the boys. Not because I don't love Tom's presence and help but because doing it alone or with the kids reminds me of that long-ago me in New York. That girl who could certainly buy, drag home and set up a tree all by herself. My first maiden voyage in Life as Mom was, interesting and in unplanned fashion, made while wearing a skirt, tights and flats. I'd been volunteering at school and on the way home thought, "Hey, you have just enough time, if all goes well, to get a tree and put it in the stand before heading back to get the boys. What a grand surprise that'd be."

And so I did.

One of my favorite images in all the year is that of trees strapped to car roofs driving toward their respective homes. It is so festive and warm, so jolly and lacking in cynicism. If snow is lightly falling and the car's driver is wearing a fuzzy woolen hat, all the better. Even though I never wear a fuzzy woolen hat and don't want to. It's just the visual of the package, you know?

Because I cannot safely get a tree off my car roof by myself, I acquiesce to shoving it in the trunk and through the console of the back seat. This is fun too and if the trunk is tied tight, there's no worry about losing the tree on the drive home. The boys and I did this yesterday, and although Ol wailed like a lunatic the whole way because we'd not bought the tree with a giant hole in the front, the fresh fir scent and the sheer festivity of the whole affair made my jovial buzz insuppressible.

The tree went up but then, tired, I decided to wait until today to start decorating. I got the lights on while the kids were at school, put on a few fragile ornaments and saved a bundle for the boys. One of Ol's friends came home with us. He's Jewish, had never decorated a tree and said in the sweetest voice, "It's my first time. How do I hang them?" We all demonstrated and he and Oliver went nuts on the branches at their height. It's like ornament vomit about three feet off the ground, but it's very dear, and I'll only cull and relocate a bit.