There’s just no way to be cheerful about taking down one’s Christmas tree. It’s the last full confirmation that Christmas is really over and the somber season of Lent is just around the corner.
It was especially sad this year to take the tree down because it was brand new tree for us- and after spending $299,000 on a tree, you want to have it up enough so you feel like you’ve gotten your full money’s worth out of it. Of course, we didn’t spend anywhere near that much, but this was not a cheap tree. . . and if we were to really get our money’s worth out of it, we would be leaving it up every year until Labor Day. (I used to day dream about how you could keep a tree up all year and just hang different things on it according to the various seasons – valentines in Feb, clovers in March, easter stuff in April, flowers in May, flags and fireworks in June and July, sunbursts in August, school supplies in Sept, halloween in Oct, harvest and thanksgiving in Nov, and then the Christmas stuff again. My cherished life partner does not share my enthusiasm for such a scenario – even though it would spare us from the ordeal of hauling this monster down the basement stairs.) Anyway, as you can tell by the date, we didn’t exactly rush to take it down, although the ornaments have been off of it for about two weeks. There’s actually something kind of nice about a beautiful tree with nothing on it but white lights- sort of a Winter Tree rather than a Christmas Tree at this point, or maybe we should have thought of it as an Epiphany Tree, since Epiphany is the church year’s great season of light.
Actually, one of the nicer things about this 9-footer as opposed to our previous one is that it comes apart in five sections rather than three- making each one a little smaller and less likely to create hernias or heart attacks. And my wife came up with the great idea of us taking the tree apart, bringing it downstairs, and then setting up again minus the topmost section. She also helped make sure that we were gentle with it along the way, so as not to jostle the lights too much. (And it’s so much easier to be gentle when you’re carrying 20 pounds of tree at a time instead of 40 pounds.) Of course, the real challenge is to keep one’s fingers out of the way of these hinged metal branches, which have a way of clamping down on your digits like some medieval torture device when you least expect it. (I have no interest in playing the score to “Pirates of Penzance” with less than ten fingers. Call me spoiled.) Fortunately, there were no mishaps of that kind . . . the tree is safely stored downstairs . . . and if fair winds are with us next December, we’ll have a fully lit tree up in our living room with no bad surprises. (You can check out my blog entry “O Tannenbaum” – Dec. 26- for an account of Christmas tree miseries of the past which compelled us to buy this new tree.)
Anyway, there is something undeniably sad about seeing our majestic 9-foot tree on the floor in pieces . . . shorn of its ornaments . . . but such is life and such is time. Not every day can be or should be Christmas – and not every Christmas gift can be opera videos. (Feel free to substitute your own favorite gift in that last part, if for some bizarre reason opera videos aren’t your favorite. . . tho’ I can scarcely imagine such a thing. )