Every year I jump into the holiday season like a drug addict on the brink of over dosing, but every year I just seem to become more and more tolerant of the dosage. Even though I start the celebrating earlier and earlier and pack up later and later, there still seems to always be something that I'm missing. My Christmas tree has been up since before Thanksgiving but even though I've decked my halls and blast Christmas music every chance I get; it still doesn't seem to feel like Christmas somehow. The only time the holiday ever feels remotely like it used to when I was a child is when I put up the old family Christmas tree back home.
Having anything other than a plastic tree was never something I considered growing up. I didn't even know there were other options. We just always had a fake tree and it was always up right after Thanksgiving. Now that I'm older I just can't seem to convert myself to purchase a real one, even though I now know it's an option. For one thing, my cat would eat it like it was her own personal buffet and cough up pine needles for the next two months. Secondly, the idea of dragging a six-foot tree up four flights of stairs, by myself, does not sound like much fun at all. I'm also a bit of a tree hugger so I could never bring myself to kill a tree for no good reason besides looking at it for a few weeks only to then throw it to the curb. Call me a sap, but it just seems cruel. Then there's the thought of strapping electricity to a drying tree while it sits in bowl of water all night. After a month with me, and no less time than that would do, the thing would be up in flames before Christmas Eve. A real tree would just never work.
Saturday night I decided to drive home to spend the rest of the weekend with my nephew on his twelfth birthday and try to bring some Christmas cheer to my parents while I was there. However, I'm pretty sure that my childlike enthusiasm for the coming holiday was received with a mixture of both excitement and resentment with my arrival. With the television sitting on the Hallmark channel for two days, playing one Christmas movie after another, and having to listen to my latest purchase of Michael Bublé's Christmas album on a loop, I don't blame my parents for probably wishing I stayed in New York after this weekend.
I don't seem to recall my parents ever dreading Christmas so much when my brothers and I were younger. In fact, my father used to be that guy in the neighborhood. The one who would put up the most blinding display of lights all throughout our half-acre front lawn. Anyone taking the corner onto our street could easily spot our house like a beacon of light at the end of a tunnel. Our neighbors looked to our house like the Northern Star for direction to their driveways at night. Inside our house, my brothers and I would help my mother as she busied herself with decorating every dark corner with colorful lights and the doors with festive cardboard cutouts of Santa and smiling snowmen. Garland nearly suffocated our adolescent tree and candles were placed in every window while the Chipmunks screeched Christmas carols over the stereo around us. It was such and exciting time then, those weeks leading into Christmas. So why is it that now, after all these years, I've been the only one putting up our ancient plastic Christmas tree and have to remind everyone that Christmas is just around the corner?
For the past five years or so, if it weren’t for my desperate attempt at finding the Christmas I used to remember, the tree would have stayed a stuffed and tangled mess in its box, tucked away in the dark recesses of the attic, never to see the light of day again. This tree, mind you, is nearly as old as I am. They don't make fake trees like these anymore. This poor thing we still call a Christmas tree has seen its fair share of ups and downs through the years and the wire branches and plastic needles, once made to look like a fine pine, was only meant to take so many Christmases, but it still stands strong and proud in its old age. To replace it, would be like replacing a brother, sister, or a much-loved family pet. It has now become a family member in itself and it just would not be Christmas without it. Half a dozen branches are barely attached to its metal trunk anymore, most of them holding on to dear life by twisty ties pulled from bread sacks and gaping bald spots dot one side that we kiddy corner to hide it's imperfection from the world, saving what's left of the tree's dignity, but I can't help but love that pathetic tree anyway.
On Sunday morning, my father finally decided to drag our beloved family tree from the attic. For my sake, I think he was trying to get into the spirit of the holiday by helping me out this time. Mopping his sweaty brow, he pulled out the various pieces of the tree from the box as I put it together and backed its poor bald spot away from view once again. When we got to the five sets of lights however, that's when my father nearly lost his wits about Christmas. After testing every single strand in various outlets around the house, strangely, not one of them worked. We had just got back from spending a small fortune on Christmas presents earlier in the day and now my father had to go back out to buy an entirely new set of multicolored lights for a tree he could care less about in that moment. If it were up to him, brother tree would have been back in the attic faster than you could say "jingle bells." Luckily, by the time he got back with a new set of lights and the tree was up. In twenty minutes, it was lit and decorated and he had cooled off enough to enjoy the glow of the ol' tree sitting beside my mother and I. My nephew, who I thought would be as excited as I was to decorate the tree, sat on the couch playing video games the entire time and only realized it was up after all was said and done. Kids these days. I know he'll remember this tree when he's older though. Even if he just looks at it now and then, it's the tree he grew up with too. So, the legend of our brave little pine, with all its imperfections, like us, will continue to live in the hearts of the next generation of DaRochas to come. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this tree outlived all of us someday. It may not have many branches left by then, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
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