Artificial or no? The Christmas tree debate.
“You’ve got yourself a monster,” declared Damon Malcom with a super-charged grin as he hoisted the lumbering evergreen beauty onto a cart.
A monster. Oh dear. Better not tell my husband. My husband who had gone to find his truck in the mass of children and parents swarming Jack’s Creek Tree Farm the day after Thanksgiving. No. I shan’t dare tell him we’ve reached monster tree status. Though just between you and me, this whole “monster” development sent a Christmas tingle of excitement to my toes. My husband won’t be so twitterpated.
I don’t get it. Every year of marriage, we’ve driven to a lot and come home with a tree. We’ve cut them down. We’ve bought them pre-cut. For a quarter of a century, we’ve selected the prettiest, most outstanding tree of the bunch, roped it to a car and carried it over the threshold into our house. We’ve strung lights and hung ornaments then taken the mess down every January 1 – give or take a few weeks. It’s a pact, a blood oath. It was in our wedding vows for pity’s sake. “And we shall haveth a monstereth real Christmas tree. Till death do us part. Forever and ever. And even after that.”
But the last few years, a tremor has rumbled through this force of holiday happiness. A growing earthquake in my joyous Christmas tree reality, one I didn’t know was a threat. A heresy. My husband declared we banish the needles and the 11-foot tipping over. The blowing of fuses and flipping off of breaker switches. The boxes of ornaments lying in the hall that we hurdle for weeks on end. His moaning started before Thanksgiving. “Jamie, I’m sick and tired of this tree mess every year. We’re getting an artificial tree.” He proclaimed it. Executive Order like.
I’m sorry. It’s not Christmas without heading to Jack’s Creek Farm the day after Thanksgiving. Weaving in and out of precut trees crowning the biggest and brightest rockstar of the bunch. Our rockstar. Who wants to miss Damon running around with more excitement and than me after ingesting a case of Red Bull. And now to know that this year, the stars aligned and we somehow combined a rockstar tree with a monster tree. <scream>
Give up that euphoria for a box out of the attic? Prying out a few meager stiff limbs that you fluff, piece together and plug in. Adjusting the branches to and fro. Who needs that? Evidently my spouse. “Jamie. We are going to get a nice 7-foot tree. One with nice 7-foot tree lights and nice 7-foot tree ornaments.”
Who wants “nice” when you can have “monster?”
After bringing our giant home, I tried really hard this year. I got the lights wrapped around speedy quick. I didn’t hang every faded Santa hand-print or decades old candy cane reindeer after our oldest suggested, “Mom, it looks like the attic threw up on our tree every year.” Our monster was decorated and boxes gone in record time. And writing this while basking in the glow of our statuesque decorated monster, I know it’s the most beautiful tree ever in the history of civilized Christmas trees. My husband? I’ll be sure to ask him what he thinks after he’s done figuring out which strand of lights blew a fuse.
After a few deep breaths and sips of wine, she decided it was now time to address the problem. pic.twitter.com/sgcBIIOKJa
— Jamie Miles (@SouthMainMuse) December 15, 2014
