Words you’re not liable to read in the Bible
Our Family Christmas Tradition: The Annual Cursing at the Tree
Do you have to keep coming out of the closet every f̶’̶i̶n̶g̶ year?
If you’re gonna make the switch from a live Christmas tree to a dead one, the best time to do so is the last week of December, when the prices of remaining holiday crap drop like a fat kid on a seesaw.
We transitioned in the mid-nineties, making sail for Macy’s to snag the prettiest previously-overpriced seven-footer.
In no time we found The Tree within a sizable stand of pimped-out aluminum poseurs. A card hanging off a branch informed us that only the display was still available for sale.
We were good with that. Money talks, discounts scream.
As we were paying for our prize, a couple of Macy’s Staff Persons manhandled Tree onto a pallet and made off with it. The cashier assured us that they will package it nicely and we should meet them at the pickup door.
At the pickup door we were met by the same two Staff Persons with the same pallet and the same tree standing on it.
“WTF?”
In response to my question, which was actually delivered in a holiday-appropriate and professional manner, it was explained to us that we had just purchased a Macy’s Display Tree.
That the Macy’s world-renowned Visual Merchandising Department had lovingly wrapped in a couple of thousand white lights.
Rendering its four sections to be irrevocably and eternally impossible to separate.
“Ever?”
“Ever. How big is your trunk?”
I pointed at my Nissan Maxima. Mr. Macy’s Staff actually snorted.
We got Tree home somehow, thanks to lots of Macy’s-supplied twine and flashing hazard lights warning drivers that the slow-moving car ahead of them was in the process of shitting a Christmas tree.
As our family celebrated Christmas in accordance with the Julian calendar, sporting a big-ass fake tree in our living room between New Year’s Day and the middle of January was perfectly normal.
But good things come to an end, and so did Christmas season.
Good news: we had available closet space in the basement to store Tree in all its assembled glory.
Bad news: there were two doorways and a flight of stairs between Here and There.
Tree was a corpulent bugger, almost five feet across its lowest branches. The width of a standard doorway is 30 inches. Two doorways, remember?
The width of a staircase is three feet, but bear in mind those pesky little things called handrails. For even more fun, our basement stairs were graced with a 90-degree turn about halfway down.
Recall that Tree had been embellished by the World-Renowned Macy’s Visual Display Department (WRMVDD) to the tune of 2,000 lights wrapped around every f̶r̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶’ inch of its aluminum and polyvinyl chloride branches.
Leading the charge, I hoisted the stump end and relegated the ass end of the convoy to Mother, assisted by Daughter the Elder, all of seven years old at the time. They were to keep me apprised of how the operation was going in hindsight, as it were.
An immediate problem was encountered before Tree had fully penetrated Door One. Eighteen miles of light bulb wires (my estimate) were greeting and making themselves besties with the g̶o̶d̶d̶a̶m̶n̶ doorknob as Tree was unceremoniously yanked through the doorway like a used tampon.
Daughter the Elder was assigned the task of unbestieing the wires one at a time as I cajoled Tree through its birth canal.
One man snugged up to a big-ass Christmas tree is about all that can fit on a basement staircase. Daughter the Elder dutifully tagged along as Mother brought up the rear, gently holding the tree top as if that d̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ helped.
Reaching the basement was a mild reprieve, as I still had to carry F̶a̶t̶-̶A̶s̶s̶ Tree another forty feet or so. To the second doorway.
Doorway Two was no more fun than Doorway One, but we made it happen and Tree was set upright in a corner, its home for the next ten months.
The lie of the Joy of Christmas was steadily revealed to us over ensuing years, as with each iteration of the holiday it was my Fatherly duty to wrestle Tree out of its god-forsaken cave, through two doorways, up the basement stairs and into the living room.
If you think a big-ass tree making that Journey from Hell remains unscathed upon its arrival, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.
Shakespeare’s Shylock famously asked, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
Tree famously asked, “If you bend my branches in fourteen directions with each birth through a doorway, do you really expect me not to look l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ bad when you prop me in front of your living room windows?”
With the possible exception of the first two seasons of Tree’s life, its repeated journeys were accompanied by my Fatherly commentary as to what I really thought of the concept of hauling a f̶r̶i̶g̶g̶i̶n̶’ hulking mass of Nativity-irrelevant military-security-grade wire and shredded landfill feed across the equivalent of a CrossFit competition circuit.
Nine years in the military had exposed me to colorful language from every region of This Great Land. Tact and propriety taught me to keep that knowledge to myself for the most part.
The part that remains when the above “most” is removed definitely included my annual conversations with Tree. The fact that those interactions bookended a religious holiday was irrelevant; George Carlin’s seven words were never specifically proscribed in the Bible as near as I can tell.
To add to the sense of holiday togetherness, Mother, Daughter the Elder and Daughter the Younger soon all looked forward to what had become m̶y̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶l̶ our family tradition.
Not as helpers, mind you. As an audience. As witnesses. Armed with a camcorder and cameras. Laughing t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ and saving mental memories with which to regale friends, neighbors and complete strangers.
Fake Christmas trees have a lifespan, and Tree was no exception. Physically and verbally abusing it every winter did nothing to prolong its longevity.
After about the third year we noticed that a string of lights, one of twenty on Tree, was dead. Conveniently located front and center.
We tried covering the gaping maw with ornaments, but each year the blackout grew like an STD rash across the hulking beast. The two sets of l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶h̶o̶l̶e̶ doorknobs were exacting their toll after all.
Trying the ol’ “trace the string and figure out which bulb is gone” technique was woefully laughable: the wiring diagram for the electrical spaghetti farm installed by the WRMVDD was only slightly less complex than that for a low-end Tesla.
As can be imagined, F̶a̶t̶-̶A̶s̶s̶ ̶B̶a̶s̶t̶a̶r̶d̶ Tree started looking a bit worse for wear every time I dragged its sorry butt out of the basement.
On its first birthday it was a bit squished.
On its second it looked like it had been thrown off a pickup truck on an Alabama back road.
On its third it looked like it had been delivered by a̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶b̶r̶e̶d̶ a FedEx driver after a bad performance review.
By its fourth birthday and continuing onward Tree looked like a f̶r̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶’ 100-pound toilet brush with twenty years of constant and faithful service on its resume.
There were many years when I was tempted to leave t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ Tree in toilet brush mode and just slap a few random ornaments on it for irony.
By the sixth year or so all the lights had bought the farm. Store-brand strings of new lights slung on t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶d̶ ̶p̶i̶l̶e̶ Tree in anger solved the problem briefly until those caught their predecessors’ disease and expired in brotherhood.
I don’t know how many years we owned t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶’̶i̶n̶g̶ Tree, but toward the end it became a personal challenge for me and a family tradition for everyone else who watched and laughed and recorded the annual s̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶ event.
Finally one summer I pretended that t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶g̶g̶i̶n̶’̶ ̶l̶o̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶x̶c̶r̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ Tree had somehow snapped in half from the heat or exhaustion or a power outage and was no longer able to m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶t̶e̶m̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶n̶e̶f̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶u̶p̶h̶o̶r̶i̶a̶-̶i̶n̶d̶u̶c̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶l̶c̶o̶h̶o̶l̶ grace our Christmas living room.
Some may say I’ve sinned and angered God in writing this story. If so and there is a hell, t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶-̶u̶p̶ ̶p̶i̶e̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶t̶ Tree is waiting there for me.
If you enjoyed this story, leave a comment, give it a clap, highlight whatever tickles your fancy and follow me for a deeper dive into my dark humor. Such as this gem:
