A Fake Christmas Tree is Good Enough

My Cat Loves Christmas!

It is December 8th and we don’t have the fake tree up yet. I’m sure the cat is looking forward to the commotion of setting up the tree. As you can see from the picture, Skittle was such a help while we put the tree together in 2011. It’s an indoor jungle gym for her. I don’t think we will even add decorations this year as she knocked them off one by one last year. Maybe we’ll add just a few unbreakable ones.

This rainy, cold, Saturday would be a good time to do the deed, but my desire is lacking. My teenage son doesn’t want to do much to help, but he likes the atmosphere of Christmas, of course. He says we should have a real tree, but he wants it to magically appear in the house all ready for the presents – those of which will also magically appear Christmas morning. In other words, he gets no joy out of picking out a tree or cutting a tree. Like most kids, he wants the gifts. So I say fake is the way we’ll go, as we have for the past few years.

All the years we lived in Florida we set up real, costly Christmas trees that were mostly dried out from the time we bought them. They had been shipped into the state and left to sit in the hot, Florida sun (yes, even in December) to dry to a crisp. My husband would only have a real tree, no matter what. It was messy, but he did the loading of the tree to the car, and unloading and dragging into the house and dragging out. Dried Christmas trees make a huge bonfire by the way – you don’t ever want one to catch fire inside!

Then we moved back to the northeast and for the first two years we lived here we went out and cut down our tree. Now, that was great. People with lots of land get a tax break if they grow trees on their land, and then they sell them for Christmas. The trees are nice and fresh and last forever. After the holidays were over I’d set the nice, green pine out in the back yard for the birds to enjoy.

But that was a long time ago, it seems. Today, I couldn’t care less about the holidays. They are just an annoyance and expensive time of giving gifts to people who already have everything they want – and then some. So fake it is. If I find the energy to drag it upstairs.