Un-decorating the Christmas Tree

How fast time passes. It seems like just yesterday we put up our Christmas tree and today we are taking it down. Actually, it was almost a month ago when we picked out our tree with care, lugged it home, and force-fit it through the doorway as needles came flying loose like a dog shaking off water after a dip in the pond. Setting the tree upright was no simple task either; this tree, like every tree we have ever cut ourselves or purchased, had a hidden curve near the bottom, impossible to make straight without the mandatory book slipped beneath the tree stand. Finally, the two of us got the tree in place, approximately straight and approximately centered in front of the doorwall. Marjorie took over after that while I watched the ballgame--- I didn’t want to deprive her of the pleasure of decorating the tree.

She began with the lights. Surprisingly, most of the strands worked and she adroitly strung what I guessed to be several hundred feet of lights around the tree. By the time the football game was at half-time, she asked me to get the giant boxes where we store Christmas ornaments. She lovingly selected each ornament from our store of several thousand do-dads before carefully attaching each to the Fraser Fir that was making the living room smell like a forest. The ornaments brought back memories: the soccer ball from the days when our boys played, the tiny brass instruments from their days in the band, the carved wooden figures that we bought in Bethlehem from the street vendor who wouldn’t leave us alone until we handed over a wad of cash. They were all wonderful, she said, as the Lions took the lead.

Just as the game wound down the tree was finished. It was a sight to behold. We celebrated the event with a toast. The Christmas tree, the outdoor lights blinking gaily, and the Lions win all seemed to offer us the promise a magical Christmas. Perhaps we felt thus since we were celebrating at our son’s house. He would be scrubbing his floors, not us.

Now the holiday is over and the tree with its falling needles is less of a magical memory and more of a reminder that houses don’t clean themselves, you know. Since Marjorie did the work in decorating, I generously offered to help her un-decorate and return our house to normal. It was something of a stressful undertaking. First of all, there were just too damn many ornaments on that fool tree. I must have spent more than an hour complaining about removing just the bulbs. The job went a little faster when she helped, but of course, I suggested which box would serve best to store each ornament.

Then came removal of the lights – the worst job ever undertaken by humans. Christmas lights never come off as easily as they go on. Something happens during the holidays that causes each strand to get stuck in place; the wires get criss-crossed or the little clips get stuck or something else occurs so that the strands are invariably tangled. It’s a mess, almost beyond the capability of husbands to neatly coil the wires and put them in their containers. It had become a two-cocktail job.

Finally finished, I slid open the doorwall and pushed the naked tree into the snow. The cold wind whipped loose needles across the living room floor. Now, the un-decorating is finished, the tree lies in the snow and my, how fast time passes as another Christmas is history. Happy 2016.