Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Renton celebrated by leaving us some ‘dressing’ in the hallway that morning. Thank you, son.
I cleaned it up since I was first out of bed, lucky me. My grumbling got Steven up.
“Happy Turkey Day,” Steven said. “You know what I’m thankful for?”
“What?” I asked.
“That you got to clean it up.”
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Thanksgiving went very well this year. I might have had one too many bites of cheesecake and apple pie . . . and chocolate goodness . . . and strawberry pie, but it was worth it.
Though Thanksgiving is my sister’s favorite holiday more than mine, I was eagerly looking forward to this one. This year I knew I would be on the hunt for . . .
THE TREE.
Despite my usual aversion to fake flowers and plants, there has always been a soft spot in my heart for my parents’ artificial Christmas tree that graces our living room every year, and I was going to get one just like it someday. Now I’ve my own husband and my own home, so someday was now here.
My parents’ tree is not your normal artificial tree. It is made up of individual branches that you attach to the central pole and the branches themselves were not the skinny kind laced with a soft material like dry grass, but they are quite girthy with stiff, slender needles — a conglomeration of uniqueness that I very much doubted I could find. Many times I think my problem is I know exactly what it is that I want, and that particular ‘something’ is usually not popular. Nevertheless, I shall search!
And search I did. With Mom and Dad in tow, we went to no less than seven stores — one of them twice — on Friday. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the specific type of construction I desired that was not to be found, for there were quite a few trees with the individual branch structure and even a few with the stiff, long needles. The problem was the craze that has swept across America known as pre-lit trees, which brings us to another quirk in my family.
Dad never cussed and fretted about winding the lights on the tree every year. On the contrary, it has always been a matter of pride — and probably a bit of pleasure was involved as well — for him when it came time to string up the lights. We used to count how many lights he could get on the tree; we quit counting once we reached 1500 one year. There were many years where it took more than one day for Dad to slowly and methodically wind the lights around every branch on the tree. This method is what I know. This method is what I will do myself. Why should I pay an extra $100 for 700 lights already on the tree; something I’d rather do myself and could probably do a better job of it anyway?
But pay people do; in some stores all they had in stock was pre-lits. The second store is where I came the closest — the construction was right, the bristles were perfect, and yes, we do have a non pre-lit one said the clerk. When I went to check out, though, it was revealed that they had only had one in stock which had since been sold. They also had two more regular trees, but they had been sold, too. Only three trees without lights on them, and this was a Christmas store! I was baffled, but undeterred.
As it got closer to dinnertime, our hunt seemed to be fruitless. We eventually headed home to regoup and have dinner. After vittles, I decided I was not going to be beaten and talked Steven into driving me to Target just to have a look, one quick look. “My tree is at Target,” I told Steven, “I know he’s there waiting.” We got there pretty quick and I made a beeline for the Christmas section, reading out the tags while walking around the tree display, “Pre-lit, pre-lit, pre-lit . . .”
An employee heard me and pompously informed me that such-and-so pre-lit trees were already sold out. “I don’t want a pre-lit,” I shot back, disturbed from my reading. And then, there it was. Perfectly constructed with attaching branches, great, big, girthy branches with stiff, long needles, true green color, and best of all, no lights.
The Tree.
I hugged it, looked at Steven, and said, “Mine.”
He smiled. “I’ll go get the cart.”
