Dec. 23, 2006 ~ Christmas Cheer
In a very pleasant turn of events, the tree arrived in yesterday's mail. Thought it best to leave it for Husband to assemble, but then realized that he probably wouldn't feel like dealing with it when he got home. The poor dear is sick now, courtesy of my germs, no doubt. Oops. And I had assembled a similar tree several times in my childhood, so thought I could handle it. It wasn't hard.
If you haven't seen one, these trees have a wooden center pole, into which each branch must be placed, one by one. So it takes a little while, but it is not physically difficult. And the decorating was simple because I was limited to the boxes I could reach. It looks... understated, if a shiny silver aluminum tree can look understated! No lights, no tinsel, just several boxes of simple ornaments and a rotating color wheel shining on it at night. A lot of people would call it tacky. To each his own. There was a time when I didn't like them, either, mostly because it was the only choice we had.
When I was a kid I was sick all the time, with chronic bronchitis and frequent pneumonia. In fact, I had pneumonia every Christmas, until a doctor determined that a lot of these illnesses were triggered by allergies, one of which was to Christmas trees. So this was the reason my family HAD to have an artificial tree, and we had always loved the real ones, so I wasn't crazy about having the silver one.
I'm still allergic to Christmas trees, but the fact no longer bothers me. And since my kids are grown, decorating for the holidays isn't all that fun anymore. It is also a lot of trouble, what with untangling the lights, hanging the tinsel, etc. Now our gaudy little tree, imperfect though it may be, is the perfect solution.
So Merry Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas, and happy holidays to all!
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