After finishing up our Christmas tree adventure for the year, I felt this article deserved a reprint. I wrote this a few years ago when the girls were younger, but strangely, even though the girls are older, this still feels appropriate. Oh, and we found our tree in the pouring rain this year, and I mean pouring. Our tree still seems to be "over-decorated"-- even with teenaged girls, and my husband still requires a drink or two to handle "lighting issues"...
I
recently read a fascinating article describing how to decorate a Christmas
tree. The article was helpful and
full of good ideas, but it discussed things my family just doesn’t put on our
tree. Adornments like fabric, fake
birds and carefully tied bows. I
read this article and examined the pictures of the gorgeous trees. I looked at our tree—no fabric, bows,
or fake birds and vowed not to be overcome with tree envy.
For
starters, a real Christmas tree needs at least a couple of little children--
better if you have more--putting all of their favorite ornaments on one
branch. It’s best if the branch
hangs really low. So low in fact,
that you stare in awe at how the ornaments are not cascading in a slow slither
off the branch and onto the floor.
It’s also good to have strings of popcorn and cranberries (also done by
the children) looped around branches.
And glittering paper stars, made at preschool, laying wherever they’ve
been tucked into the tree by small sticky hands. We, the grown-ups, are given the top half of the tree, but
considering how much work goes into the packing and unpacking of each ornament,
and how quickly the season goes with piano recitals, Christmas pageants, school
parties, gift buying and cookie baking, my husband and I don’t have the energy
to hang more than five of our favorites – maybe ten. So our tree has this wonderful asymmetry; the bottom half
drooping with treasures and the top half relatively bare.
The
other element in a real Christmas tree is that there must be strings of lights
that don’t work and quietly muttered curses by the designated tree
lighter. In our house, we all
implore my husband, the tree lighter, to use more lights. And here we are in complete agreement
with the article I read. It suggested
wrapping each branch in lights for a “lit from within” appearance. My husband tries very hard at
this. First he tests strands of
lights, and find that they don’t work as he has prophesied. He then makes his annual trip to the
hardware store for more lights and begins the lighting process. There is muttering and cursing from our
tree lighter, and clamoring for more lights from the children and myself. A couple of hours and two stiff drinks
later, and the tree and my husband are both well “lit from within”.
Now,
according to the article I read, it’s very important to drape and tuck the
fabric into the tree. It sounded
like this was a common practice, and it was simply a question of which fabric
to use and how best to drape it. I
have never put fabric on our tree.
It looked gorgeous in the pictures. But I wonder if it belongs on my family’s tree. For if there is beautiful fabric woven
throughout the branches, where would you put the dolls, the fairy wands, the
gluey, glittery artwork of the children?
We have only girls in our home, but I imagine a whole host of other
things that could be stashed in a tree—toy cars, little animals, and favorite
clothing items. I think you can be
really creative in this area.
A
real Christmas tree comes with some serious exhaustion for the grown ups, and
some serious joy for the children.
And I didn’t see exhaustion in the photographs of the designers—they
looked as beautiful as their tree.
And I didn’t see any scratches on their arms from branches, or drinks in
their hands from “lighting issues”.
So, I think they must not spend enough time on the Christmas tree
process.
At
our house, we still visit a tree farm.
We drive by loads of beautiful, already cut down and ready to go trees,
for the prospect of walking through mud, rain or snow, and circling around
various “not quite right” trees, until finally we spy the one we all like. The one we envision in our living room,
looking perfect hours (and hours) later.
A proper search takes a good part of a day in itself.
I
have many, much wiser friends who have gained some insight into the
season. This knowledge has led
them to purchase another sort of Christmas tree altogether. They have purchased Fake trees. A completely forbidden concept at our
house, but one in which I see a lot of good sense. One of my girlfriends has a tree that is already lit and
decorated. She has a large storage
box for it, and when it is time to put up the tree, she gets out the box and
pops it open like a large umbrella.
The layers of fake greenery, lights and ornaments all sort themselves
out into a beautiful sight—much like how the tree grows in the Nutcracker
Ballet. The whole process from
start to finish takes something like 12 minutes—and that includes the time
spent to go to the garage and get the thing. I can’t say I don’t find that process appealing.
But
in our home, we can’t let go of the tradition of a real Christmas tree. We hunt through the woods (a farm
really), we argue about which tree, we have group indecision, we feel the cold,
and sometimes the sun, and sometimes the rain or snow. We arrive at a decision that we all
agree on, and then we are all both tired and excited. We love our tree.
Our girls are as attached as if we were bringing home a puppy. The decorating process naturally
includes some bickering, some “this is my area of the tree” clashes, and so
forth. The branches droop with
homemade treasures. The dolls get stashed, as do pictures of the girls when
they were babies and toddlers. My
husband truly gets frustrated with the lights and vows to invent lights that
work past one season. We really do
have a drink when it’s all finished, and yes it really is to calm and soothe. And when we turn out the lights and
plug in our Christmas tree, it really is a thing of beauty. Decorations fashioned by the hands of
my family in all their imperfect perfection. This is our real Christmas tree.
