Christmas Trees . . . and Needles

This is the time when everyone begins to think about reversing the process, taking all the Christmas decorations down, taking the tree down. All those years we used to have a live tree, beginning with ones that were about seven feet tall, slowly shrinking in size as the years went by. What a pain it was to put on the light strings, then the garland, then the balls and trinkets saved from years gone by. But it was always beautiful, always, as we would invariably say, the best tree we ever had.

But then we had to take it down, putting all the light strings away in confusing tangles, the garland rewound on rolled newspapers, the balls back in their age-yellowed boxes. And the needles. Needles everywhere. Dry, clinging needles we could never get vacuumed entirely, still hiding in rug crevices to be found the following year. We even continued to have live trees after we moved to Arizona, only much smaller than previously, shrinking from those seven-footers to five feet. Still, however, with the dried needle problem. About ten years ago I began making my own tree. I would hang heavy cord from the shelf above our mirrored wall down to the floor, fanning them out in a cone shape, anchoring them with an assortment of heavy stuff. Then I’d string lights and garland just as with a live tree, then the bulbs and other ornaments. And, with the house lights off and the tree lights on, it actually looked like a Christmas tree.

And no needles. That lasted for five or six years, and then we got smart enough to buy a small artificial tree, four feet tall, fiber-optically lit. Out of the box and onto a sheet-draped table.

That’s it. And putting it away is just as simple, back into the box and out to the garage until next year, next Christmas. And the way time has been flowing by, next Christmas is only five or six months away.