HeeHeeHee

I should be more Holiday-y than I have been for the previous three weeks. Right? I am right. So, here we are. If you celebrate any of the holidays of December, then you’re either sitting-back with a smug look on your face because you’re ready, or you’re in panic mode. I am see-sawing a bit over here. I’m laid-back one minute then panicky the next. It usually takes about five minutes to remind myself “It’s the season”. We all have mixed emotions about a big celebration and lose track of how we could be enjoying all of “the season”. We should enjoy all of the shopping, the baking, the cooking, the wrapping, the decorating, the planning, the giving and the getting. And, we definitely would benefit by laughing at some of the absolutely ridiculous things each one of us has encountered/will encounter during the festive season.

I’ll go first. From the ’60s to the ’90s it had been our family tradition to have a real Christmas tree whenever we were “home for Christmas”. When we moved to this house the ceiling height encouraged LOML and I to branch out (so to speak) and buy really tall trees. The tree was usually delivered with a thump to our side porch by the local “nursery”. Those trees were so big the thump shook the whole house. The last real tree we bought had been delivered with a thump, as per usual. LOML and I heaved and hefted that beauty into the house. Planted it squarely in its stand and gave it a day to spread out before we set about to decorate. All hands were pressed into service when the “Tree from Hell” was finally draped with lights and decorations. Once the Tree from Hell was well and truly decorated we headed to the kitchen for dinner. Just as we dug in we heard it. A creak and a groan (a piney clatter), from the front room, followed by a spine-chilling whoosh, then the tinkle and crunch of broken baubles. We froze for a moment, mouths agape. Youngest child, although never having experienced a tree-fall, burst into tears and between sniffles declared, “Christmas is over”. We set the behemoth back into its stand, cleared away the broken bits, wired it to the corner of the wall and waited.

Over the next week, Tree from Hell fell broke free of its festive bonds and crashed to the floor around-the-clock. Everyone was tense. Every possible means available to us to keep that beast upright was pressed into service. It fell during breakfast, it fell in the evening, it fell overnight. Two or three times we came home from work to find TfH splayed across the floor. When LOML and I decided we’d all had enough we waited until the kids were in bed and quietly un-decorated it, heaved it out the porch door then planted it upright in a massive snow drift in the side yard. Did we forgo Christmas? We did not. We had a four-foot tall, bottle brush of a tree from our festive travel days (we used to go to Toronto for Christmas) which was pressed into service. The wee tree was put in the place of honour and completely decorated with about one quarter of the gewgaws. Did the kids notice? Of course they did. The older ones weren’t terribly upset, but the littlest kid was sure we’d sealed a deal with the Grinch and blubbered through her oatmeal. And then?

Well, and then Santa Claus visited in spite of the tree substitution. By Christmas Day the kiddies had adjusted. And the Tree from Hell? Well, we figure it just wasn’t meant to be an “indoor tree”. It stood, upright, in that snow drift until Spring. We still laugh about the whole situation and we’ve never purchased a “real tree” since.

Don’t forget to find the HeeHeeHee in your HoHoHo.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca