Oh Christmas Tree!

Been focused on the season lately and all that entails from a family and social responsibility point of view, add some additional work fluctuation and writing here became less of a priority.

I refuse to touch on the horror of last Friday only because the noise is quite loud and I would rather not add to it thank you very much.

So I will focus on one of my favourite things about this time of year.

Our Christmas tree.

We are a natural Christmas tree family, always have been, always will. Growing up in the sparkley seventies, my parents experimented with all kinds of fake trees, including one completely made of tinsel. Add our orange shag carpet and brown corduroy couches and we lived in quite a scene man, pass me a Tom Collins.

We used to make our way up to one of the many farms north of the city and build a larger experience of harvesting a tree, but for the last few years, we chug over to our local church and purchase one from the boy scout troop. In the last two years, the church is so close to our house that we all walk up to it and carry it home, each of our arms enveloped in the branches, covered our arms and hands in sap, avoiding the traffic and reveling in the occasional Merry Christmas honk.

Once home, we drill in the base and position it in the world’s most ambivalent tree stand. Here I hold it and try to hand screw the holders while Steph clucks her chin and tries to imagine the perfect angle. This year she thought nailed it and bolted to work on the garland on our porch. I decided it wasn’t quite perfect and within seconds was yelling to Hud to come and rescue me as the tree had tipped and I was trapped under its sticky, prickly branches.

Finally straight the heat of the house does its magic and warms the branches into holiday position. It comes wrapped in a net, so you don’t know the quality of the tree until its warm and settled.  This year’s version had a bit of a gaping hole on one side, but once facing the corner, it turned out to be a perfect triangle.

But holy Hannah is it big!  Big for our tiny house that is.

My favourite part of our Christmas tree is the decorations. For the 15 years Steph and I have been together, we have (we? really Jason?) collected ornaments. We have a giant light bulb given to us by couple whose marriage has since resolved, but lives on in this wonderfully campy gift. We have random plastic animals from another set of friends equal in its camp and frivolity. Various classic balls were given as gifts at the holiday parties we used to throw when we were young and soaked in vodka. We have ornaments we made when we were kids, handed back to us by our parents for use in our legacy.  And of course we have the ornaments our boys have made over the years, looking so awesome in their various state of ridiculous artistic integrity.

Add just ones that Steph, with her crafty eye, has picked out randomly over the years and you have a beautiful, heartfelt tree that is only allowed to be dappled these ornaments with white lights, deeply embedded within the branches.

We put on holiday music as we decorate and Tasman is more into it than already teenage in attitude Hud. But it’s a tradition, and traditions are important.