When I was a child, the day after Thanksgiving was spent shopping for only one thing: that year’s Christmas tree. My parents took the two bench seats out of our minivan, and my sister and I climbed in the back, thrilled at the rebelliousness of riding in a vehicle not only without seatbelts but without seats. We popped our old cassette tape of Mahalia Jackson singing carols into the stereo because Christmas isn’t Christmas without Mahalia. And off we went, driving to the tree farm, the holiday spirit palpable all around us.
Once we arrived, my sister and I scampered out into the rows upon rows of evergreens while my dad got a saw from the tree farmer. He and my mom followed us, periodically shaking their heads when one of us found the perfect tree that also happened to be roughly ten feet tall. In the end, we always ended up with one that was a little wonky. Maybe its branches were rather scant on one side, or perhaps it was so fat that it was difficult to pass the strands of lights around it, or it was an extra-poky variety. But one thing is sure: we did always find the best tree for us.
The farmer shook the tree and bagged it for us before loading it into our minivan. My sister and I clambered in after it, making our annual attempt–and annual failure–to not get any sap on us during the drive home. Riding with the tree was never quite as glamorous as finding the tree, I must say.
When we got home, my mom and dad went straight to work pulling decorations out of the attic, my sister grabbed the Swiss Miss and some mugs, and I went to find our vinyl record of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” We feverishly decked out the tree with the angel ornaments my great-grandparents bought for us each year, the wooden sleigh ornament my fourth-grade teacher gave me, all of our “first Christmas” ornaments, wreaths made from pipe cleaners and Froot Loops, and souvenirs from trips we’d taken. Finally, my sister put the angel on top of the tree, despite my perpetual hope that she had surpassed me in height since being the shortest was the requirement for this job.
The year I was married, my husband and I pulled out our respective boxes of Christmas decorations and hung them on the pre-lit artificial tree we’d purchased on clearance the previous year in anticipation of our first Christmas as young marrieds. (We saved money, saved time, and saved the planet, winning all around for a newlywed couple in graduate school.) I put Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas on the CD player, but we had finished decorating the tree before the album was even half finished. We stood back to look at it, severely underwhelmed by the sparseness. Both of us agreed that it really needed something else, if not quite a few somethings.
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