Jingle Hell, Jingle Hell
The exhausted curmudgeon’s Christmas
It starts by driving 70 miles in white-knuckle traffic, to three cut-your-own tree farms, a farmers’ market, and two retail establishments to haggle prices with a frighteningly hairy Neanderthal who wears an eyepatch. You refuse to pay 195 bucks for a dead eight-foot fir tree. At some point, you give up, cut your losses (no pun intended), and purchase a 5-foot tree for $125 that looks as though it was harvested last year by a herd of cocaine addicted beavers. You pay an extra five dollars to have him strap it to your car, breaking several branches.
But the tree is finally home. The annual overpriced dead fir tree decorating can begin.
First things first.
I begin this auspicious occasion by fortifying myself by uncorking the first of several bottles of wine. Followed by vodka and what’s left of the gin. My wife begins this occasion, as tradition dictates, by calling me a useless drunken jackass.
Next:
We move the furniture around for an hour to determine the perfect location for the tree. Which always turns out to be the same place as last year. So, we move all the furniture back to its original location. Now the tricky part — to affix the slanted, oddly shaped, tree trunk to a tree stand. I do this using saws, drills, jack hammers, welding equipment and a years’ worth of swearing. I engineer a dazzling support structure from scrap plywood, duct tape, rebar, and a cinder block until the tree, now leaning at an 82-degree angle, is pronounced “upright.”
Pro tip: Tradition dictates that making and attaching the tree stand to the tree, must be done by a male, who can’t identify the working end of a screwdriver and has absolutely no handyman skills — stock up on Band-Aids and coagulant.
Once the tree is up, the bottom five limbs cut off, and the giant hole in the tree’s side turned just so — we decide that though it looks like Vinnie Three Thumbs put it up, it’s very festive.
Full of promise we proceed to: Application of Ornamentation.
The time-honored tradition of vicious arguing begins halfway through the “Preparation of the Garland.” My suggestion of just standing back and heaving it at the tree was not appreciated. The cursing will reach its crescendo later during the “Stringing of the Lights,” when you consider stringing your family up instead is the easier choice.
Now the lights:
Oh, the goddamned lights. It takes two hours to untangle the seventy-foot gordian knot of Christmas lights that you wadded up and shoved into a box last year. Of course, half of the strands don’t light up. Most have broken or missing plugs. Your wife doesn’t like blue lights, you hate red. You agree on purple. This sometimes ends with skipping the lights altogether, known as the “fuck this holiday shit” compromise. Remember, throwing the tree out and celebrating something else, anything else, is much cheaper than a divorce — and you’ll still have the wine.
Take a moment to explain to the damn cat that this is not an outside tree.
Don’t concern yourself too much about safety. There is nothing inherently dangerous about wrapping a tinder-dry fir tree in cheap, frayed, electrical wire, made by six-year-old children in China, and plugging it all into a heavily overloaded electrical outlet. Ignore any sparks, crackling, and that funny fried wire smell. Place bucket of water next to tree.
Pro tip: To prevent neighbors from hearing excessive cursing and calling 911, play Christmas songs, and turn the volume up to 11.
Hopefully, by the time the tree is ready for the “Arrangement of Breakable Glass Ornaments,” the wine will have calmed your nerves enough to hang six, maybe seven, ornaments from the three lower branches strong enough to support them. Or leave them off all together. Dealer’s choice. (Important, do remember to hang your kid’s handprint ornaments from the third grade.)
At the point I can no longer navigate the stepladder safely due to “The Pouring of the Spirits,” I cease providing my wife with any help whatsoever and retire to the nearest chair to “oversee.” I open a third bottle of chardonnay, point a lot, and say “no, no, not there!” Then dodge the occasional ornament.
Eventually, the tree is up, decorated, most of the lights work, and the cat’s “present” has been cleaned up. It is now time to top the tree in a solemn and very moving “Mounting of the Angel” ceremony. The origin of this ancient rite begun in the early 1600’s by perverted catholic priests out of public view. Fortunately, over time it has morphed into a purely symbolic gesture performed by shoving the tip of the tree up a plastic angel’s ass rather than an alter boy’s. And there the angel will sit in holy repose, watching over us, a beatific smile plastered upon her face.
The tree now awaits only the presents. Presents I no longer have the funds to purchase — but it’s the thought that counts. They’ll be some socks, a jigsaw puzzle, and whatever sweater was on sale.
I’m sure some of you will see yourselves in this heartwarming Christmas story but now it’s time to sit back, enjoy the tree, a crackling fire (hopefully not the tree) the wine, and rejoice with your family.
It's the happiest time of year, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Wonderful. What time do we eat?
As children, we would as a family (7 of us) go to the local tree farm and cut down a tree. This was after about an hour of arguing and ending with my father yelling at us kids to shut up and go back to the car. He and my mother would arrive 10 minutes later with a tree that was too large for our house. Then would ensue what you described very vividly.
Once the lights were up, we children were once again allowed to participate if we were over the age of 5. Ornaments were placed according to height. Arguing broke out frequently. My mother oversaw this portion of the festivities.
Once the children were done, my mother put the rest of the ornaments on, usually the glass and antique ones.
Cats were removed frequently. Btw, the tree was so large and had so many cats climbing it , it was learned that the tree had to be wired to the ceiling. There were several hooks left in ceiling as the tree roamed the house, looking for a permanent solution over the years.
As we all grew up and came and went over the years, some things remained the same in the Christmas tree ritual: the tree was far too big, Dad did the lights, kids did the ornaments, and somehow, by the next morning, the tree was completely redecorated, top to bottom. Even after my mother passed.