I fear Christmas trees. I realize it is like fearing lollipops, children’s birthday parties, frosted chocolate cupcakes, fuzzy bunny rabbits, or dishes of pudding. I am sure it is considered un-American, satanic, and the 73rd reason I will be going to hell. But to me Christmas trees are big and intimidating and overbearing and needy.
They start out naked and need lights and garland, and bows, and a tree topper, and popcorn, and sentimental ornaments you need to have some story about, ornaments that some kid made you with peeling glue and despite the fact it’s falling apart you love it more each year.
Everyone around me has these fabulously rich stories of growing up with Christmas, decorating the tree, rising early on Christmas morning to sparkling gifts magically placed under the tree, and I just can’t relate making me feel like a foreigner.
Recently, we got a tree and I have attempted to join in the magically delicious fun to decorate it and it never looks like the one’s I see in magazines. One year I imagined the tree as a person instead of a thing and hung vintage air fresheners with pictures of tantalizingly naked ladies on her. I gave her a tree skirt made of a fur stole. And I added some shiny, rhinestone costume jewelry to top it off. We had a party and I could tell from our guest’s reactions this is not how other people had decorated their trees in their homes and I would not be rewarded with gifts next to my furry tree skirt on Christmas morning.
Some of our friends had travelled to Spain during the Christmas season. They were so desperate for a tree they drove their rental car into a wooded area and illegally cut down a tree to take home. Very conspicuously they drove past suspicious eyes back to town with a freshly cut tree riding high in the back of their convertible.
I am uncomfortable with my very unpopular indifference toward trees when most people are willing to risk an unsavory encounter with the Spanish police for their passion for the Christmas tree.
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