There’s
an ornament I always place at the top of the tree. It’s a thin,
faux-gold depiction of a boy about 6 years of age; he’s wearing those
full-body pajamas with foot pads so thick they could deflect
point-blank rock salt fired from a sawed-off shotgun. He’s holding a
wrapped present in one hand and a teddy bear in the other, and the name
“Jeff” is inscribed across his chest. He’s supposed to
be me.
What
a metaphor for the unique time-warp that is putting up a Christmas
tree. For those lucky enough to enjoy this as a consistent tradition,
setting up that wobbling pine is a trip inside Peabody’s Wayback
Machine, a wormhole that connects us to holidays past. It would be more
fun if there were an actual wormhole, because then we could make a
detour into the 1930s to punch Hitler in the face and
invest in Oreo stock. But lacking that, the tree is a nice stand-in.
Golden Boy is always the last ornament I place in the tree. There’s a reason for that.
Largely
it’s because the rest of the process is a gigantic pain in the butt.
I’m a firm believer that the tree should be erected as soon after
Thanksgiving as possible -- otherwise you expend more energy than a
deadsquatting coal miner, and for what? Two weeks of light and mirth?
Forget that. Egyptians building the pyramids brick-by-laborious-brick
had a less burdensome task than getting Christmas
in order, and for my efforts I’d like my creation to stand as long as
possible. Preferably through Easter.
By
far the most tedious part of tree prep is stringing up the lights. In
my years of doing this -- I’m the official Tree Guru -- there have
been maybe two instances in which I got it right the first time. This
is an exultant feeling; it’s like sinking a hole-in-one on the windmill
course while blindfolded and balancing on a roller skate. Nine times out
of 10, however, I take an initial stab at
the lights, step back to assess my handiwork, and realize that all of
the bulbs are in two knotted clusters. Or there’s a tangle in the middle
that looks like an antelope mooning teenagers from the rear window of a
Dodge station wagon. In these moments I marvel
at how wonderful it would be to celebrate Hanukkah.
Surviving
the process requires music. Lots of it. If I had my druthers I’d string
the lights up to the sound of some hellion ripping buzz-saw
guitar solos while screaming about werewolves, but there’s usually
someone else in the room, so no heavy metal for this guy. I settle for
Bing Crosby and lush orchestral classics, the kind of stuff they should
play at the mall but never do. This gets me in
the spirit. Hearing Kenny G blast out “Silver Bells” -- he’s got a
decent Christmas album, don’t judge me -- ignites the necessary fire
under my roasting chestnuts, and in this way I can get the lights
straightened out without giving my animatronic Frosty
a hat-shattering piledriver. You cope any way you can.
It
would be easy, once the lights are settled, to climb into an easy chair
and slip into semi-lucid consciousness in front of the 1000th broadcast
of “Frosty Gets a Back Massage.” A nap is surely needed at this point.
But the lights are only step one. Step two is hanging the ornaments,
which becomes an increasingly complex challenge every year; the family
is constantly adding new pieces to the ornament
collection, while the old ones aren’t retired unless they’ve been
cracked, smooshed, splintered or melted by the heat of an oil drum fire.
That means more and more ornaments and less and less tree on which to
place them. One more bear hugging a candy cane,
or Santa riding on the back of a dolphin, and we’ll have to get a
second tree -- a “kiddie” tree, if you will, for all the newcomers who
are still too young to hang with the 30-year veterans. It would be
similar to the kiddie table at Thanksgiving, only the
kiddie tree would be quieter and require less cake. I’m still working
out the details on this one.
Fitting
all of the ornaments on the tree is one challenge. Age is another. I’ve
been on ornament duty for about 25 years, and at the beginning
it was easy, at least from a physical standpoint. When you’re young you
can abuse your body in the most horrendous ways -- slam butt-first into
a tree branch, do somersaults on nail beds, you name it -- and in two days you’re ready to rumble.
Those
days were long ago. I have now officially reached the age of little
annoying aches and pains, and while they’re mostly survivable, it
makes ornament hanging a difficult endeavor, what with the ducking and
bending and kneeling. It’s pathetic, really, because there are men my
age still playing professional football and hurling themselves into
people’s bodies like they’re trying to save them
from an oncoming bus. Here I am, by contrast, wincing at my sore hip as
I find just the right branch for the hand-knit Christmas booties I wore
when I was 1. When I’m double my current age I’ll have to outsource
this task entirely. Should make for an interesting
entry in the Help Wanted section.
Despite
all that, there’s one moment I get to experience each year which is
perhaps the sweetest and most wistful part of my holidays: hanging
up Golden Boy. He always gets the highest branch, and when I place him
there, my hand lingers for a moment on his sharp, coin-thin curves. It
may not be the oldest ornament we have, but it’s my favorite, has been
for decades, and one of the most heart-wrenching
aspects of Christmas is that I get to hold him only twice -- once when
putting him up, once when taking him down -- and then it’s done. Off
into a box, to be held and seen in another 11 months. The best and worst
thing about this time of year is that it’s
so fleeting.
Sure, I grumble and grouse. I’m a grumbler and a grouser. But a finished creation like that is always worth the effort.
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