Sunday, December 07, 2003
The First Noel
I realize that I’ve admitted it before: I am a freak about Christmas. So naturally, when we finally get our own house that’s large enough to house a Christmas tree, we go out and buy one as soon as the season begins. But one is not enough. Oh no. Every room must have something festive in it, so I also buy a much smaller, more conservative tree for the living room downstairs. If it would not push us over the edge into poverty, I would have a tree for every room.
If you haven’t bought a Christmas tree yet and your religious or commercial beliefs support that sort of thing, here’s a little tip that we realized during the purchase of our very first tree: there’s something romantic about a couple’s first tree. Romantic enough that others -- complete strangers – want to share the experience with you. The couple that’s shopping next to you relates the story of their first tree and sums the experience of every tree thereafter, for the fifteen years of their marriage. And the guy at the garden and market center even pulls apart the whole pile of fraser furs and unwraps them, just to find the perfect one, and continues to give you a discount on your first tree.
I must admit, it’s rather perfect. After years of watching my parents shift the crooked, spiney trunks to make sure they were correct, this was perhaps the easiest experience I could have anticipated. It is perfectly shaped. The trunk is straight as an arrow. The top supports a star with more strength than David to Goliath.
Yes, our first tree was not a Charlie Brown tree.
posted by paula
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