mas Tree Up Yet?

By

Gerry Niskern

When I was a child, the Christmas tree magically appeared in our living room each Christmas morning. It stood in glorious splendor in the corner complete with twinkling lights, shiny ornaments and tons of icicles.

The minute I opened my eyes, sometime around dawn, and sniffed, I knew it was there. The pungent pine aroma filled the chilly air. My sister and I raced barefooted down icy cold stairs. Sure enough, Santa Claus had come down our chimney with presents and…. a tree.

“How did my parents do that?,” I used to mutter every year as I dragged down the boxes of ornaments, untangled the lights and start trimming the tree. The last few years I’ve vowed to give it all away after the holiday season is over. I’ll just pick up one of those tiny trees to arrange on a table.

I remember the our first Christmas after we became  parents. We set out to buy our baby daughter her first tree. The Dairy Queen owner on West Van Buren always filled his empty parking lot with fresh evergreens. All the young couples in our crowd were on a tight budget and our friends warned us, “Be firm, don’t pay the price on the tag.”

Imagine our shock when we approached the vendor with our chosen tree and asked if that was the best he could do. “If it’s for that tiny baby girl, there’s no charge… and Merry Christmas to both of you.”

The next year we took our toddler to see the huge tree in downtown Phoenix like the ones we had always enjoyed as kids. The city workers placed the magnificent fir on top a large box-like platform in the middle of the intersection of Washington and Central Avenues. The trolleys that traveled Washington passed by on either side.

We have had all shapes and sizes of trees while our kids were growing up.  One year we bought all unbreakable ornaments when our son was an aspiring, two years old  Mickey Mantle. When our daughter went to first grade, she brought home a paper angel with shiny blue wings. The holy lady was too large to hang on the tree; the young artist laid her on one of the branches.

As the years passed, her younger brothers brought home their own works of art. Our older son brought a clothes pin wise man, complete with cotton beard and a ric-rac desert headdress. Most astonishing of all was the bright green snowman.  He was made of numerous round parts all taped together in a long string. I was just about to compliment my youngest son on the cute caterpillar, when he said, “ Mom, how do you like my snowman?” and he laid him it across the branches of the Christmas tree.

The more willing helpers I had, the slower the job of decorating the tree became each year. We reminisced as we stopped to examine each work of art and look for names and grades on the back.

When the grandkids came along, I started hanging my Christmas cookies from the boughs. Of course, that brought lots of willing helpers.  After a few years,  we purchased  an artificial tree. And our color scheme gradually changed from red and green to mauve and silver to purple and teal and then gold and blue. However, somewhere along the way, the willing tree trimmers grew up  and  became busy with other activities during the Yuletide season.

Believe me, I really planned to go with the little tree some day.  The problem  is, we never know when there will be another grandbaby or great-grandbaby bringing us his own unique works of art.

The more I think about it, maybe we had better keep the old tree a few more years. Who knows? Someday we might get a red snowman.