THE SONIC BOOMER
American poet Joyce Kilmer once wrote, “only God can make a tree.”
I must, therefore, assume that Joyce had just finished attempting to assemble an artificial Christmas tree and that’s where he got his inspiration.
Seriously, what is up with these things? The Chinese manufacturers have made every effort to spell things out for us (in English, even), but I still end up wrestling with “top,” “middle” and “bottom,” and trying to keep the middle section from wobbling in the tree stand because I need a shorter tree than I thought I did.
Actually, I only use artificial trees in my shop. There’s enough flammable stuff in that place already without my bringing in wood branches, trunks and bark. At home, I must have a real tree. I need the nostalgic scent of pine. Growing up in Wisconsin, it smelled like Christmas all year long. Because of this, I do try to keep my Christmas tree up as far into the new year as I can, usually taking it down right before the last needle turns to tinder, or on the day before Easter, whichever comes first. (“I don’t get it, Mommy. Baby Jesus was just born, and now he’s dying?”)
That’s one thing you can say about fake trees — they don’t drop their needles. I told myself that as I extricated this year’s monster from its box amid a shower of silver glitter. Needles, no. Glitter, yes. Because last year, in January, I badgered the guy at the department store until he sold me a $399 “antique silver” tree for $75. Oh, it looked beautiful all set up. And I assumed that was the one I was getting, not the unassembled version in the box.
But when the guy at the loading dock presented me with a brand new one, I was grateful that it would be easy to store for 10 months, not ungrateful that I was going to have to wrestle with it. That came later.
Specifically, yesterday.
So it took me three hours to put my Christmas display window together, but it wasn’t solely the tree’s fault. Some of it was the lights’ fault.
Because my shop sells antiques, I try to stay away from LED lights, choosing instead to pay through the nose to run twinkle lights or, in the case of one madcap year, 1950s Christmas bulbs (one goes out, they all go out). Twinkle lights are getting harder and harder to find, especially the white ones with white cords. So, I buy them even if they’re icicle lights. Then I spend half an hour untangling the icicles and threading them around my sign in the window, and then I plug them in and half the string is dark. Then I take them down. I get to do that over and over for another hour and a half. (Yes, I did test them before I put them up there, smartypants).
So it turns out only God can make a tree and only God can keep the twinkle lights lit. And this is why we celebrate the season.
