When my own children were small, I insisted we get our own live tree. My husband, not so fond of this tree search adventure but agreeable to what I wanted, took us out to find a tree. We did come home with a tree. It was scragglier than I really wanted, but I loaded it with ornaments, bare spot to the wall, as tradition goes. All was well until Christmas Eve when we hear a loud crash. It might have been a tad barer on the wall side than trees past, and I may have placed more of the heavier storebought ornaments because the kids didn’t have that much school under their belts yet to have made a collection. Our son later confessed that he woke but didn’t get out of bed and thought Santa took a fall. We re-erected the tree with a haphazard decorating job to get us through the next day. The trees always came down the day after Christmas at the latest. Because no matter how well watered, by then it was starting to brown, the tips of its branches fell off, and the thrill of having cedar stickers stuck in the bottoms of our bare feet was gone. We were tired of wearing socks all the time. One year, Mom mentioned a fake tree so she could decorate early and enjoy it longer. I was neutral since both finding a tree and having it up longer sounded good to me. But even then, I recognized Dad’s look of disappointment when she mentioned it, so she never mentioned it again as long as I was still home. And oh, those icicles… Dad made us pick all of them off the tree and save them for the next year before the tree was discarded. That was the worst. Not until a few years ago did I find out how cheap they are. Even back then when we had to save them, though, we loved the icicles, and the tree was dripping with them every year. We’ve used an artificial tree for years now, since the kids are teens and we are out of town some of our Christmases. But I still find myself proclaiming, now and then, about a tree spotted on the side of the road or in the median: “That tree over there, it’d make a perfect Christmas tree.” Maybe this is the year of the live, barespot, found-deep-in-the-woods, shortened, memory-making Christmas tree drenched in silver icicles. I can’t imagine anything more lovely than that. l
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www.dependableaircond.com DECEMBER 2020
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