Advent Blog Day 4: Oh, Christmas Tree

Coming to you from the Annamaniacs vault of my weekly humor column. This was written in 2003. It was the first Christmas after the end of my twenty year marriage. Previously we had always had a live tree, but I considered that it would be cheaper for me to buy a fake tree once and then always have a Christmas tree no matter what my funds would be like in future Christmases. And yes, this is pretty much what happened when I brought that tree home to the four children who still lived at home - they were 4-12 years old. *****

“What is that?” they asked as I came in the door carrying a long box.

“It’s a tree.” I said.

“Can we open it?” Excitement danced in their eyes.

Eagerly they brought out kitchen knives and sawed at the tape that kept the box shut. Happily they opened the box.

“What is that?” they asked staring in dismay at the contents.

“It’s a tree.” I pulled out a piece from the box.

“A fake tree! You bought a fake tree! There goes Christmas. Look at how short that is!”

“It’s not short. That’s the bottom part. See, you put it together.” I showed them how easily it went together. Or tried to. It didn’t come with instructions.

“I know.” One child grabbed the middle piece. “You just plop it right here.” She threw it somewhere in the middle of the top part of the bottom piece. Then watched it fall over.

“I think you need to slide one pole into the other.” My 12 year old son said.

“So where is the place you’re supposed to slide it into?”

“The stupid branches are in the way and the branches look stupid. How are you supposed to hang anything on those stupid looking branches.”

“Look,” I said, “you pull the branches down. And you can move them around so that you can cover bare spots. You can’t do that with a real tree. Isn’t that cool?”

“I think it’s stupid.”

“And,” I added, “we can put the tree up way earlier than a real tree. We can put it up right away instead of having to wait until the week before Christmas. It’s not a fire hazard and it doesn’t shed needles.”

“So what are those?”

“Okay, it sheds a few needles. But you know how real trees are, by the time you get them back out the door, they’ve created a forest floor for mice in the living room, and you’re still vacuuming needles by the time you’re wearing a bikini.”

“Ewww, Mom in a bikini! Did you have to put THAT picture in my mind?”

“It smells like the plastic they use in diapers.”

“It doesn’t have a smell.” I sniffed.

“Now there’s a selling point. We wouldn’t want a tree that smells like pine or anything.”

“We can burn a pine scented candle.”

“Yeah, like the banana nut bread candle that makes us think you’ve been baking only we find out you haven’t.”

“Now see, doesn’t that tree look nice.” I said as I stood back from finally putting it together and fluffing out the branches.

The children all stared at the tree.

“I’m sure it will look even better once we get it all decorated.” I smiled.

“Yeah sure, Mom. We could even wrap up some fake presents to go under the fake tree.”

“Hey, I like that idea. It would sure save me some money.” I said.

“You’re kidding right? Mom, you’re kidding. Mom…Mom….M-ah-m."