Our First Christmas Tree

I’m 45, and I just sprang for my first proper Christmas tree.

In years past, I haven’t bothered. For one thing, I’ve always hated the holidays. Sometime around the time I was 5 or 6, my little sister and I were caught snooping early one Easter morning for Easter Eggs. As punishment, we were sat down and told that the Easter Bunny didn’t exist; by the way, they were lying about all that Santa and tooth fairy shit, too.

Boooya! Lesson learned! My parents’ punishments cut to the bone, even as they failed to address the aberrant and/or perfectly normal little-kid behaviors that elicited them.

So, that ruined Christmas for me as a kid. As an adult, I got in the newspaper game, as a builder of seasonal ads. That just made things worse, as my workload increased exponentially around the holidays. By the time the blessed day finally arrived, I’d had Christmas up to my asshole for a month and a half. It didn’t help that Christmas with the family during that period (the meth and immediately-post-meth years) was invariably a nasty, stressful affair that I eventually bailed on altogether. Most of the best Christmases of my 20s and 30s were spent alone, or with friends from highly-functional families (thanks, Kath and Bill!).

So then I got married and inherited my wife’s family's Christmas traditions. Lovely people (who occasionally read this blog), but even in functional families, stress-levels redline around the holidays. Plus, I’m pulled away from my beloved Routine (if you know me, you know how much I value the security of a reliable routine) and plunged into a home environment so clean and antiseptic I feel like I’m befouling a national monument every time I have to hit the head. Example: the towels out in the bathroom are for show - the towels we’re actually allowed to use are stashed away in a drawer. I'm just not used to this level of putting-on-the-dog, and it makes me really uncomfortable.

Oh yeah, plus I don’t sleep well at all away from home, and the spare bedroom at the in-laws is all eggshell white, with “curtains” as flimsy as Bush’s reasons for going to war with Iraq. The floors are all beautiful hardwood and creak like motherfuckers throughout the house at all hours of the day and night. And I can only do 2, 3 nights max without decent sleep before I begin to crumble from within. It’s not pretty. This year…4 nights. I’m trying not to think about it.

Anyhow, we have a child of our own now. Maybe you’ve heard. The Man Cub is 2+ now, and old enough to begin to appreciate the big Christmas show. Already, I’m wrestling with the ethics of promoting the Santa mythos - where do I draw the line between creating a lovely yuletide illusion for our special little guy, and being the instigator of an ugly cover-up that is doomed to come to light some day? The Missus has convinced me - wisely I think - to swallow my reservations and play the Santa game, at least for now. I still have no clue where it comes to explaining how Jesus fits into all of this extravaganza, but that dilemma is still a couple years away from hitting the fan, so I compartmentalize and carry on…

So last weekend, we hit the local Target, picked out a tree we judged would fit in our trunk, loaded up on lights and garland and came home and started our own family tradition. Even though we won’t be waking up in our house again this Christmas, we figure the boy deserves as much of the traditional holiday hoopla as we can muster.

And our family tradition is starting with an Elvis angel on top of the tree, superhero (and a Darth Vader) ornaments mixed in with the standard ones, as well as a generous supply of ornaments lovingly hand-crafted by The Missus. (Is there no end to her talents? I’ll let you know if I discover one.) She even let me hang an old hand-held scale formerly used to weigh out small amounts of marijuana (inset), but drew the line at a small plastic Beavis doll.

Sigh. Marriage is compromise.

But the ball is officially rolling. The house smells like pine, and my usual holiday crash-n-burn hasn’t hit yet, and we’re at two weeks out and counting! Maybe it’s the tree. Maybe it’s the promise that in years to come, our son will wake up in his own bed on Christmas morning, and I will too! I’ve been waiting a lifetime for the chance to forge some Christmas traditions of my own, and this year, we took the first step.

Oh, who am I kidding. It’s got to be the Elvis angel on top of the tree.

Happy Christmas, naysayers. If it can happen for me, it can happen for anyone.