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Perfectly Christmas
The perfect Christmas is a relative thing. That is, the perfect Christmas often hinges on the relatives. As far as my relatives are concerned, I think we celebrate the perfect Christmas every year. It helps to have a sense of humour and low expectations. But I’m okay with a few laughs and setting the bar low. For those of you who know me, and for those of you who think you do, I am not a perfectionist. That may be a surprise to some of you. To that end, this year I’m going to share what happened on one of our less-than-perfect Christmases pasts.
When our youngest kid was about six, she was chosen to be “The Angel on the Christmas Tree” at the school Christmas pageant. Imagine that! My angel was The Angel. Who knew such talent could exist within my humble home? But it did. The classroom teacher suggested a white dress, some wings and perhaps a halo. Now those items aren’t something the average family just pulls out of the tickle trunk. Our friend, Melanie P., came through with a lovely white dress and adorable wings. Mel, it turns out, was the Christmas pageant go-to for Angel outfits. Our youngest was thrilled to be outfitted in such style and looked forward to her musical debut atop the foamcore Christmas tree. Perfect. The St. Greg’s Christmas pageant was scheduled the day after we put up our perfect tree. It was going to be perfect!
LOML took a picture of our little angel standing in front of the Perfect Tree. It was the last time the whole family saw our perfect tree standing upright. When we returned from the Christmas show, the Perfect Tree, all nine feet of it, was spread out across the living and dining room floor. Decorations were either smashed or lying scattered across three rooms. Tinsel infested every corner of the downstairs rooms and the water from the tree stand had tripled in volume and was at least knee deep. The Angel cried. The older brothers sighed. LOML and I tucked the kids in and spent two hours mopping, uprighting, securing, fixing, gluing and redecorating. We poured ourselves a drink and sat back to admire our ability to make things perfect again. Around two a.m., we were nestled all snug in our beds, we heard a creak, a huge thud and the tinkle of ornaments succumbing to the downward pressure of our perfect tree. We laughed, a little bit, hushed the Angel who heard the crash and spent two more hours making things perfect, again. As luck would have it, over the next five days, the Perfect Tree fell over about a dozen times. Short of erecting scaffolding around the Perfect Tree, we’d done just about everything to secure that bit of pine. It stopped being upsetting and became downright funny. On day six, LOML and I had redefined our routines to include perfect-tree-duty-and-a-drink. We started to worry about becoming alcoholics. Something had to be done.
Over a sobering cup of coffee, LOML and I decided to remove all the decorations, lights and tinsel from the Perfect Tree. When all of the kids were in bed, the deed was done. A threadbare artificial tree was dragged from retirement and pressed into service. The next day the tiny, apartment-sized tree didn’t fool the kids. The Angel whimpered that it was going to be “the baddest Christmas ever” and “Santa wasn’t going to like it”. We pointed out that the Perfect Tree (from hell) was living in the snowdrift at the end of our driveway. That made her smile. Santa found us without a problem. Christmas went as expected, although not as originally planned.
Years later, the story of “the Perfect Tree from hell” is part of our Christmas tradition and how the Perfect Tree managed to stand, upright, until the middle of March the next year in the snowdrift at the end of our driveway.
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