My dad was in charge of the Christmas tree long before I accompanied him. His trees then are legendary because they were never perfect, were hilariously funny looking, and were the talk of the neighborhood. One year he set off to find a tree and returned minutes later with a beauty. He'd been following a truck on the interstate when a tree flew from the truckbed unnoticed by the driver. My dad pulled over, loaded the tree, and it became our treasure. That one was my mom's favorite.
In Florida, we don't have farm trees--or at least not in our area, so picking a tree is done at a store where trees are shipped in from up north. Our choice of stores is Home Depot. We have luck there every year, and so when everyone around us began putting up Christmas decorations BEFORE Thanksgiving, we caved as the calendar rolled to December and headed off with our only child to get our tree.
Elliot loves the smells, the children who want to pet him, and the treats the cashier has tucked into his red apron. Christmas tree shopping is now his thing each year. I hope he has fond memories.
Our assigned tree expert this year wasn't exactly jolly. I'm picky about trees, and I like to take my time wandering the aisles, smelling the pine, and pretending I'm up north. Of course, it was 80 something degrees, and I worried the trees would wilt sooner than expected, but we managed to find our tree on the third try, and that's probably only because our not-jolly expert didn't seem inclined to open another tree for our perusal.
We tied it on to our van and drove home.
Usually, we put the tree into its holder and wait a day, but Tom was impatient. Or maybe he'd picked up the Early Christmas bug everyone else seems to have this year, but he got out the lights and strung them while Alexa played Christmas music in the background, and Elliot and I judged his technique. I hate doing the lights on the tree--that's Tom and Madison's job--but it doesn't mean I don't like them a certain way.
Darcy and I take on the ornament decorating, but before she left for school after Thanksgiving, she admitted to me tree decorating was not one of her fond Christmas memories--too much work, too tedious--Bah Humbug.
I think Tom outdid himself this year with the lights. He added a string of white lights, which I vetoed, and he ignored. I prefer colored lights at the holiday, but his addition of more colored lights paired with the white turned out nice. I liked it so much, I thought we didn't need ornaments. He vetoed that.
I those the next day as I didn't want to get too excited on just the first of December.
As I put on the ornaments, I reminisced on each one. When I first met Tom, he used to take me to this Christmas store to pick out a new ornament each year, and he kept up the tradition with the kids for years. I'm not sure why they quit doing that, but they haven't gone in a couple of years.
I wanted two trees this year, so I could put one in the Steelers room, but Tom nixed that due to cost. Instead, I decorated a fake tree that came from my mother's condo, and I used all Steelers decorations. I thought it fabulous! Maybe I'll leave it up all year.
Apparently, my Steelers tree and/or my reminder of his yearly purchasing of ornaments got Tom motivated. He shopped and returned not only with some new decorations for the living room tree, but he also bought ornaments to decorate the Steelers room.
We are now decorated and ready for the holiday. We're anxiously just waiting on our kids, our nephews who stay with us, oh, and Santa--can't forget him!
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