Thanksgiving is over. The fall decorations have been wrapped, boxed, and returned to the garage amidst the other mostly forgotten clutter. Let the Christmas season begin.
The week following Thanksgiving is the week that my wife loses her mind and decides that the Christmas decorations need to be put out immediately or else she has failed as a wife, a mother, and as a human being. This is the time of year that I must listen to non-stop Christmas carols in the living room, and intermittent cries for help from the garage. I simply adore the winter classics, such as, “I can’t reach that, can you get it down for me?” “Clean that out before you bring it in the house, there might be spiders.” And my personal favorite, “This is too heavy, I need you to carry it into the family room.”
The kickoff to this annual parade is, of course, the trimming of the Christmas tree. We have a nine-foot, plastic monstrosity that is absolutely covered in pre-strung lights. Most of them even work. It weighs about the same as our sofa, and it cost more than we pay on our monthly mortgage. Eleven months out of the year, it sits on a shelf in the garage wrapped in a garbage bag and providing shelter for everything that scurries, flies, or crawls outdoors. It is my job at the end of November to peel off the plastic covering, shake out the dirt and new inhabitants (trying to keep the screaming to a minimum so as not to disturb the neighbors) and drag the green plastic behemoth to its place of honor in the living room.
Once in the house, my wife takes over. And by take over, I mean she tells me where to put it and how she wants it displayed. This year was a personal best for me. I only had to assemble the tree twice, and relocate it four times. While this process was going on, my two daughters were sitting on the couch five feet away, playing with their cell phones and watching SpongeBob on the television set. This would not bother me so much if they were five years old. But the youngest is seventeen, and the oldest is twenty. At this stage of their lives, I expected more from them than the occasional complaints that the tree looks crooked, or that plastic trees are stupid and we should have gotten a real one this year. However, any suggestions I made regarding them actually moving off of the couch to assist me were all met with confused stares. Perhaps I should have used smaller words. Or spoken more slowly. Or used less profanity.
But I digress. Back to the tree.
When the tree is finally assembled and upright, with absolutely no help from my useless children, my wife begins the process of decorating it. This process of course included me returning to the garage to locate a ladder and three large plastic bins full of Christmas tree ornaments. After the requisite delousing ritual, I drag the aforementioned items into the house and place them around the tree wherever I happen to be told to place them. I find it curious that this is the point in the day that I am no longer permitted to help. I do not get to handle the ornaments once they are out of the boxes. It is as if she is afraid I will start grabbing ornaments and throwing them at the tree from across the room, like a chimp in the zoo tossing its own feces.
Now, I am only permitted to step back and observe while she climbs the ladder and begins to place shiny baubles on the branches just so. Sometimes, my wife will let me take a picture so she can post it on social media and tell all her friends about how she put the tree up today (refer to photo above). Otherwise, I am merely a spectator, forced to watch while she teeters precariously four feet off the ground. Her efforts are usually punctuated by pleasant observations like, “I can’t quite reach that. Maybe if I lean over a little more.” And, “Oops, that was close. I would have landed on the table.” I have suggested to her that standing at the top of a ladder may not be in her best interests. Three surgeries on her feet in the past five years may not have actually improved her balance and climbing abilities. She insists she is fine and politely asks me to mind my own f—ing business.
911 is on speed dial and our insurance is paid up, so I just walk away. I hide in my den and wonder if, when I come back out, I will find decorations covering the tree, or blood covering the walls. And I know that, either way, it will be my job to clean it all up by January second.