Calm and Bright

Last year, I showed you our hand-me-down Christmas tree that has been in Ryan’s family for over twenty years.  Every year, Ryan brings it down from the attic,  and we set about putting it together by color-coded sections: fluffing each branch lovingly into place, stretching the lights across the living room floor to test them, wrapping them around and around and around and around, arranging and rearranging, then vacuuming up all of the dropped needles that fall as we work, before collapsing into heaving, sweaty messes on the couch.  And that’s before we even hang a single ornament.  Usually, I do that with the boys “helping” the second night, and it takes hundreds of ornaments to fill the tree.  It’s an ordeal, to say the least, but one I used to enjoy.

Before I had children.

And it’s not their fault, and I love my boys to pieces, but Christmas is a lot more work (a whole lot more!) once you have children.  Because, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, but her name is Catherine and she’s armed with a credit card and an Amazon Prime membership, and she drives to school and back, and gymnastics and back, and packs lunches, and buys teacher gifts and wraps them, and buys birthday and Christmas presents and wraps them, and plans parties and family get-togethers, and does laundry and irons shirts for the school program, and well, there aren’t any elves around to help her.

It’s my job, and I gladly signed up for it, but yeah, that tree is killing me slowly every year.

This year, I just couldn’t face it, and I strongly considered stringing some lights on my big indoor plant.  I bounced this idea off Ryan and a few other people, and just got stares of disbelief in return.  Ryan said it didn’t sound like me, and he asked what I dreaded about putting up the tree.  We decided together that I dreaded the time it took, the stress and hassle and amount of work, plus the fact that I’m the one who takes it all down in January when the boys go back to school.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of giving, of reflection, of sharing joy with friends and family, and I just don’t want to spend all of my time decorating a big, fat tree.  And, when the boys go to bed at night, I really like to blog.

So we ventured out Friday morning in search of a MUCH smaller tree, and we found one!  Best of all, it’s pre-lit and I can put it together all by myself.  I did that Saturday night, while Ryan, for the very first time ever, hung lights on the outside of our house, while the boys “helped.”

Our tree is tiny, at less than five feet, and crooked, and scraggly, and absolutely perfect.

(Our little tree. “I laughed when I saw it, in spite of myself.”)

And then, after dinner, I spread out a few ornaments, none of our most valuable or sentimental, and the boys proudly decorated our little tree, all by themselves.  It took about thirty minutes, and it looks beautiful.  And we can cross that off our list, and move on to the two weeks of school before the parties begin, before James turns five, before Ryan has his birthday, before Christmas arrives.  I can take a deep breath because our house is decorated, and I’ve still got a little time to myself in the evenings.

(Ornaments ready for the boys to hang.)

(James decorating his tree.)

(Rhys considering proper ornament placement.)

(The lovely, final product.)

Best of all, when the presents are opened, played with, and the boys have returned to school, it will take me less than an hour to put it away until next year.  And maybe then we’ll bring out the big tree again.  Or maybe not.