Oh Christmas Tree
There are certain brand loyalties that people hold onto ferociously. These are those pop culture markers that define identities: Coke vs Pepsi, Cloth vs Disposable, Real vs Fake.
I'm old enough to remember when fake trees first made a splash on the Christmas scene. They were alternately embraced or reviled, seen as either a brilliant invention or a sure sign that Christmas was going to hell in a handbasket. To this day, people remain divided by their love of the fresh cut pine or their love of the convenience of plastic. When my mother brought home our first fake tree, no one was more appalled than I. Where was the pine smell? The needles that pricked you mercilessly as you attempted to hang tinsel on the tree and seemed to infest the entire house, jumping out at you from unexpected locations in the middle of August? The inevitable baldspot? A fake tree was most definitely not Christmassy.
But...it sure was convenient. Especially those newfangled prelit ones. And if there's one thing I hate more than being the assembler of the some assembly required items, it's stringing lights on the Christmas tree. Last year, when the top strand of lights on our handmedown tree blew a fuse, I could have gone in, untangled the whole mess, and restrung the tree with working lights, but I didn't. We just had an unevenly lit tree.
This year, for the first time ever, I bought a new Christmas tree. I could have gone with a real one, but the prospect of wrestling a firehazard up to the eighth floor, combined with the idea of then stringing lights around those stinging branches, didn't exactly fill me with the same holiday spirit as the 50% off all prelit trees sale at WalMart. So, I bought a new tree.
To bring home and decorate with pretty glass balls and candy canes and jingle bells in a house with a toddler and a kitten. I don't know what I was thinking then, but after stepping on the 97th jingle bell last night, I'm thinking that they're the fake tree equivalent of the pine needles. But, so long as I don't have to string any lights, I'm cool with that.
Comments
Yay for fake trees! I grew up in South Florida where the "fresh cut" trees are usually brownish and brittle by the time they make it down to us. Last year, I convinced my boyfriend to buy a real tree for his house (in Maryland) and although the pine smell was great, the compulsion to keep watering the thing, not start a fire, and then haul a messy, crumbling tree down to the curb after New Year's was just NOT. Fake trees definitely have their benefits!
gotta agree, had a potted real one last year and now its dead. fake tree has been re introduced.
Merry Christmas! There is definitely something to be said about the convenience of a fake tree. Plus, you can always get a real pine or fir wreath for the fresh scent.
Is it green or white? I swear this year was the year of the fake Walmart tree. (Can't beat it at just 30 bucks!) Unbeknownst to any of us, my brother, sister and I all got white Christmas trees from Walmart this year. Pretty bad coming from a family who has NEVER owned a fake tree. Ours weren't only fake, they were white too! Next year we'll all be going out to buy color wheels.
I refused the thought of resolutions this year! But I made a true promise to myself which was to finalize my divorce. I've put it off long enough, and the thought of still being legally tied to someone so horriffic...let's just say I'm over it. I've been raising my son by myself since he's been born really, but alone for 11/2 years. It's time!
Well this is my son's 3rd Christmas he was born in september 2004 in Mobile Alabama. I've made one promise to myself (especially since i'm from PA)my son will have ONE real tree(only when he's old enough to help clean up the mess) and he will see REAL SNOW at least once hopefully at christmas time and hopefully lots of it so he can build a snowman. BUT GOTTA LOVE the fake treese any other time.
