Datebook: Sunday, December 3rd ~ 2006

Today was the official day that 70 % of Americans put up their Christmas tree. The figure used is not from a Nielson Poll but from my own observation of cars I passed on my way to the grocery store with green shrink-wrapped trees strapped on the roof and the number of woman I observed shopping with vacant stares from trying to assemble artificial branches to the scotch pine painted bases. I then multiplied that number by 200 million. Even without a bar graph I think most of you will agree I have a slightly smaller margin of deviation than those projected in the November elections.

The problem with “putting up the tree” day is that so much goes into the concept days, maybe even weeks, earlier.

For example, you have to decide if it is to be a real tree or an artificial tree. Notice I did not say “fake” tree, because then of course, the connotation is negative, as in trying to be something that is not real.

My husband decided long ago that we would have an artificial tree. No matter how much we pleaded and begged for the scent of fresh pine, he held firm.

He found all of our Achilles’ heels.

To my daughter he offered the scenario of the lovely little spruce growing with its family of seedlings in a northern forest. Enter the woodsman, who armed with axe or chainsaw, rips the little evergreen from its roots and tosses it on a truck to journey south.

Once there, the dying tree is used by non-foresters for a few weeks and then tossed to the curb, where it is eventually picked up and shredded.

To my son he offered the conservation theory of forestry and of soil maintenance. He contends that without the added benefits of mature trees the greenhouse effect is further harmed by the premature harvesting of youthful trees.

Playing on my fears of potential fire hazards, my husband always posts the previous year’s fire counts, triangulated by county, state, and national statistics. I immediately purchase seventeen more smoke detectors and post evacuation plans.

Needless to say, we have always had an artificial tree.

My husband makes concessions by allowing real greens for wreaths and garland.

This has been the standard pattern of operation for twenty years. The aged artificial tree with seventeen color-coded layers of branches that had to be bent, shaped, tugged, and twisted to make them look like a wilted, green brillo-like “tree”.

Until last year.

Last year while in one of the major department stores I wandered into their “tree trimming’ department and discovered the “NEW” artificial Christmas trees.

Maybe you have seen these. Basically, the new tress come in three pieces and the lights are already assembled. They are part of the tree. I know. Amazing. And when I say lights, I mean LIGHTS. 2000 lights on an 8 ft. synthetic Blue Spruce.

I bought it without telling my husband. I mean, why ruin the surprise? That’s what Christmas is all about.

And he was surprised! In fact he was speechless for several hours. I kept telling him how great this was going to be—no more trying to guess if the orange dots were really red dots of the branches of our old tree, no more laying out miles of lights and even then, we only had 250 to 300 lights tops!

Last year we had the new tree up in four minutes.

Then we plugged it in.

It is a bit difficult to describe that first time, but I can only correlate it to the time we went to an afternoon ballgame that went into six innings of overtime. Around 7:30 they turned on the ballpark lights and it was almost a religious experience, basking in the brightness and glare of 19 billion watts of halogen clarity.

My husband said the lighting of the new tree was more like from the movie Coneheads, where everyone suffered ultraviolet burns from a moment of exposure.

Okay, I’ll admit, it is a bit bright, but isn’t that the point?

We have always placed our tree in the living room, near the bow window. This year our neighbors asked us if we could move it to another part of the room because it created such a glare they couldn’t see their TV screen, and their house is two acres away.

Some people are really hard to get into the holiday spirit.

So this year we set up the tree in a new location—in the family room. My husband kept muttering something about visitors with epilepsy but sometimes even he gets cranky until he has his first mug of eggnog.

Tonight I am basking in the light of my new tree hoping all the other millions are feeling as content as they pick pine needles from their socks or finally match all the branch colors to the base of their vintage tree.

I might write my tree company a letter and thank them for the added benefits that they didn’t mention. Now, we don’t need to use any other lights downstairs, it is a bit too warm now to think of using the fireplace so that cord of hardwood is going to last a while, and I don’t think it is my imagination but I seem to be getting a bit of a tan….

Mombo