Tis the Season

It’s the season to be jolly!  There’s presents and mistletoe and holly!  But yet, every year, I find myself feeling more melancholy than jolly.  I think it’s a hard time of year for a lot of people – people who have lost loved ones, people who aren’t with their families, people who don’t have anyone.  I know that I’m luckier than many…this weekend I get to go home and celebrate Christmas with my family.  But still those moments of melancholy pop up every now and then – and not just when that thoroughly depressing Christmas Shoes song plays on the radio!

One of the things that always makes me sad is decorating my Christmas tree by myself.  There’s no one to share in the stories or the memories or to climb up the ladder to put the star on top.  It’s just me.  Kinda sad. 

So, I figured I’d do the next best thing and have a virtual tree-trimming party and share all those memories with you!  Grab some nog and join me!  I’ve already done the hard part – the tree’s up and the lights are untangled!

The major theme of my tree seems to be all the places that I’ve traveled to over the years.  There are multiple ornaments from Seattle, an ornament from Victoria, British Columbia, and one from Vancouver.  There’s also the ornament that I got the time that I went to Chicago and met Oprah Oprah’s garage attendant.  There’s the ornament from Boldt Castle which is either in the Thousand Islands or the Thousands Lakes.  I can’t remember which but I do remember that there’s a tragic love story associated with the castle. 

Despite my aversion to zoos, there’s an ornament from the San Diego Zoo.  And one from the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway that I visited with my mom and my cousin a few years ago.  My absolute favorite ornament is from that same trip to California – a hand-crafted tiny nativity scene that I picked up in Balboa Park in the midst of an argument with my mom.    

But not all of the ornaments associated with my mom involve arguments.  There’s the one commemorating our trip to see the Radio City Rockettes and the Phillies 2008 World Series ornament that, for me, doesn’t commemorate the Phillies’ World Series win but rather the crazy trek that my mom and I made down to watch the victory parade and the even crazier trek back home.  And then there’s the little teapot ornament that I got when we went to see an exhibit of First Ladies’ dresses at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. 

If you have First Ladies, you’ve gotta have Presidents right?  Don’t worry – they’re well-represented.  Ornaments from the Truman Presidential Library and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s retreat in Gettysburg hang proudly from the branches.  The brass drum ornament from the John F. Kennedy Library that I bought while I was an intern there reminds me every year that dreams really do come true. 

There’s an ornament from the World War I museum in Kansas City that I visited with colleagues while we were in town for a business trip.  And there’s an ornament from the World War II museum in New Orleans that my dad and I visited the day that we left on a cruise.  We spent so much time in the European Theater section talking to a veteran who landed at Normandy that we had to rush through the Pacific Theater section so that we could get to the ship in time!

Talking about cruises!  There’s the ornament that I got when I went on a cruise with my cousins on the Serenade of the Seas.  And two separate Grandeur of the Seas ornaments – one from a cruise my family took out of Baltimore and the other from that New Orleans adventure.  Yep, same ship, two different cruises, two different ornaments.

There’s a ballerina ornament that my aunt gave me for Christmas one year.  My aunt used to make gingerbread men for all of the cousins and present them to us at dessert after Christmas dinner.  It was a lovely gesture except that the gingerbread men were practically inedible!  My aunt passed away a few years ago but that ballerina ornament always makes me think of her and those gingerbread men.    

And of course, a tree wouldn’t be a proper tree if there wasn’t a pickle hidden in it!  This is one pickle that I won’t give away!

And there’s an ornament with a simple command – believe.  Believe that anything is possible.  Believe that dreams do come true.  Believe in the magic – and meaning – of the season. 

Time to turn on the switch!

 

What a lovely tree!  Thank you for sharing in my memories and helping me decorate! 

The Great Christmas Tree Hunt

Last Saturday, my family and I ventured to the land from whence Christmas trees come.  No, not the parking lot where the local Kiwanis club is selling pre-cut trees.  Nope, we went to the great Northern wilderness that those in the know call the Poconos. 

We’ve been going to the Poconos to get our trees for years, only missing a few years when, yes, we went to the parking lot where the local Kiwanis club was selling pre-cut trees.  When I was little, my family joined a bunch of other family friends to make the trek from suburban Philadelphia to Hill’s Tree Farm in Jim Thorpe to find the perfect Christmas tree.  I’m not so little anymore but “going to the mountains” to chop down our tree is still one of our most important family traditions. 

Now, I use the term “chop down” loosely.  Although there is an option to use your own saw, we never actually chopped down our own trees – we let the workers with chain saws do that.  Chopping trees down is a hard business!  I should know.  Two years ago, I had to saw off a few low hanging branches of my tree and it took me five hours.  Granted, all I had was a drywall saw…but still – a girl can break a sweat doing that kind of work! 

When we go for Christmas trees, there are a few things that never get old…no matter how old we get.  First – as you drive into the tree farm and are still on the outermost perimeter of the acres and acres of trees, it is a given that someone will say – “That’s the tree I want!  Right there!”  Which is always hysterical because like we’re really going to walk the 19 miles from the parking lot back to that tree.  But we say it every year…it’s tradition, after all.

Every year, my dad always makes the same joke as we’re walking around the field trying to find our trees – now three trees for the three households in our family.  When we’re calling to one another to say, hey, I found a tree, where are you?  My dad will pipe up and give this helpful answer – I’m by the green tree!  He said that 427 times last Saturday.  And it never got old…for him.    

Also, every year, we can never quite remember what kind of tree that we get – it’s as if we’ve never gone Christmas tree hunting before.  Do we get a Douglas fir?  Or do we get a Fraser fir?  And oh my gosh, how tall of a tree can we actually get?  My height factor is problematic for two reasons – one, I’ve got low ceilings; and two, any tree that I get has to fit inside the Silver Bullet to make the trip back to Maryland.  For the record, a 7 foot Douglas fir fits quite nicely in a Honda Civic.  Getting it out is another story altogether…

This year, the story of the trees that my brother and I chose to bring home for Christmas was rather special.  We picked trees that happened to be standing side by side.  I said that they mirrored our relationship.  They were planted together, they grew up together, they got chopped down, and one moved to Maryland.  Our life-story brought to you by a couple of evergreens.  Sweet, right?

A lot has changed over the years as we’ve carried on our tradition.  We’ve seen tiny trees grow into great big Christmas-tree worthy trees.  We used to walk from field to field but now there’s a cute little trolley that will take you to the field of your choice (I’m not that lazy, I still walk!)  And we no longer go with those other families; but sometimes if we’re lucky, like this year, we’ll run into one or two of them and they’re doing the same thing we are – carrying on a family tradition and trying to find the most perfect Christmas tree ever.  Just like every year before. 

7 feet of evergreen wonderfulness

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Join me tomorrow for a virtual tree-trimming party!  But bring your own eggnog.