Finding Contentment

That stressful Christmas tree

09:39 AM, Thursday, November 29, 2007 .. Posted in Family .. 3 comments .. Link

Well, it's that time of year again. The annual putting up of the Christmas tree. This has been a stressful time for me since I was a child.

When I was growing up, we always had a real tree. Being the frugal, single mom that my mother was, we never got our tree until the week before Christmas. By then the tree lots were trying to get rid of whatever they had left and Mom always got the tree at a deep discount – it helped that the lady knew how to negotiate! And we didn’t care – we loved picking it out, even if our choices were slim.

Being that we lived in a city with millions of people and took public transportation everywhere, Mom always tried to buy from a tree lot close to home. That way, we could walk down the street (us three kids and mother) carrying the tree. We would take turns, two at time. One would carry the trunk and the other would carry the top. This was fine until my teenage years, when everything embarrassed me…

But when we got home the real stress would begin. We had to find a way to make that tree stand up in a tree stand. Now I have no idea if we had a cheap tree stand, or if these last trees on the lot always had warped trunks, or what. But it was never as simple as putting the tree in the stand and turning the screws tight to hold it up. Invariably, as soon as we did that, the tree would slowly but surely fall over.

Mom would send everyone on a quick scavenger hunt for Tinker Toys and blocks that could be put between the trunk and the screws to try and even it out. It was usually an all day process to get the tree to stand up, and stress levels were always high.

Fast forward to when I got married. I was not going to have that stress. I insisted on an artificial tree so it would stand up every time. Problem solved – or so I thought.

You see, I would be all for just throwing the tree up and putting the ornaments on every year. Christmas is supposed to be a happy season, not a stressful one.

But my husband, bless his heart, has always had issues about the arrangements of the furniture, etc. in rooms. Oftentimes I come home from wherever to find a room or two in the house completely rearranged. I’m pretty flexible, so this usually doesn’t bother me as long as I’m not there during the actual rearranging. It’s never redecorated, you understand – just rearranged.

We usually put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, and this year was no exception. Or, at least, we tried. Our living room is small, and finding a place for the Christmas tree every year is a challenge.

I really don’t care if the living room is crowded during the holiday season, or if the tree looks right next to this or that. But it is a big deal to Mark. So after pulling out all the decorations and rearranging several big items, the room still didn’t feel right to him. Needless to say we didn’t get the tree up that day. We took a break and tried again a couple of days later.

The same stressful stuff happened, but the tree eventually got put up after Mark’s computer was moved out of the living room and into the bedroom. I thought everything was finally okay, but yesterday Mark was unhappy because he didn’t have much room to maneuver where his computer is in the bedroom. He was contemplating rearranging again…

The tree is the only decoration up so far. I haven’t had the heart to put anything else out. I love Christmas trees once they are up, but I just can’t seem to get away from those bad childhood memories of the stress that accompanies the traditional tree trimming.

The only bright spot is taking pictures of the kids as they put the ornaments on. Adam, 4, squeezed a glass ball a little too hard and it broke. As he held it up to me, I saw a look of amazement on his face and heard him say, “I very strong.” And I actually smiled.