Over the past weeks I have regretfully come to the conclusion that Christmas as I have always done it was going to be out of my reach this year. After weeks of doctor bills and illness I did not have the money, the time or the energy to do much in the way of Christmas prep.
I have to admit that decision did not always fill my heart with joy but it seemed to be the mature, responsible decision this year. On Sunday I was surprised with the gift of a tree. I have to admit that it made me happy to think about having a tree up. And then .... I saw the tree. A sadder tree would be hard to find. It was thin and completely flat on one side and had about 10 branches on the entire tree. As I stood there and poked it with my toe, I kept reminding myself that lights and decorations cover a multitude of problems.
Putting aside the cloud of fatigue that has been my companion over the past month, I drug the ladder in and pulled myself up in the attic. And I do mean pull because my ladder is about a foot and a half shorter than it needs to be to get me in the attic. Then the task was to figure out which of the 20 boxes of Christmas things had the decorations for the family room tree. I finally found it and with fear and trembling dropped myself and the box on the top rung of the ladder so I could drag it all downstairs.
Now I had the tree ... I had the decorations ... what more could I possibly need? I should have known it was not going to be that easy. The tree did not fit in the stand. This poor little spindly tree was too small for my tree stand. But my son took pity on me and put it in the stand, brought it in the house and left on his merry way. There was only one small problem ... the whole tree was at a tilt. I tried to straighten it and finally gave up and went ahead and decorated it.
As I stood back and looked at my tree I kept telling myself that it was charming ... wonderful .... but it really was not. It looked like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Sighing I went to bed and told myself that it would grow on me. As I popped out of bed in the morning I heard the dreaded sound of breaking ornaments. I ran into the family room to find ... yes .... the tree had fallen over.
Tearfully I took stock of some of the ornaments that had been smashed. My Wedgwood ornament from one of my churches at my 10th Christmas with them. The hand painted, blown glass ornament my cousin gave me the first year I was married ... the list just went on and on. It was too horrible to really take stock of so I went back to trying to get the tree upright again. I tried straightening the tree it would not stand up, I put shims in the stand ... I spent 20 minutes trying to get it upright. All I accomplished was pitch all over my hands, pine needles in my hair and exhaustion. So I did the mature thing. I swept up all the glass I could reach and left the tree on the floor. It has been there for the last 24 hours ... staring at me reminding me that I was beaten by Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.
After careful reflection, I have finally come up with a solution. Tonight I will go home and carefully take all the ornaments off, wind up all the lights ... and kick that tree to the curb.
I give up!
Just Connie
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