"Yule Time Division Of Labor"

Yesterday was "Put up the Christmas Tree, Dear" day for me. This task has been assigned as my sole Yule time responsibility for the past 24 years of living with my holiday crazed wife. When daughter Megan was just a babe, some 22 years ago, and for a number of years thereafter, I performed the same ritualistic and devoted duty as my Dad did when my brother and I were children: wait until we (and she) were sound asleep on Christmas Eve to begin the ardours task of dragging the tree into the house to decorate into the wee hours of Christmas morning...all to promote and keep alive the sweet myth that Santa "had done it all," as was obviously evidenced by the fact that all of the milk and cookies had been consumed. The fact that Dad was a walking zombie come 6 a.m. on Christmas morning, having been able to snatch but a mere 30 minutes of sleep, was lost on the wide-eyed wonderment of Megan as she surveyed the mounds of gaily wrapped presents beneath the tree that, "Who would have guessed!," had her name affixed to almost every gift tag.

Those days of Christmas morning sleep deprivation have long since passed, but not the task of erecting the traditional tree to herald the season. So, what's the big deal? For a lack of a better term, it is a curse that I've brought on myself. For many of the early years, we like every other red-blooded American family, purchased a "live tree" to adorn with holiday cheer. This was all well and good as long the tree retained the majority of its foliage and didn't, over the course of two or three weeks, dry up to the point that the needles that use to be firmly affixed to the tree were now all over the floor and what clung stubbornly to the branches could pierce armor-plated steel. Determined that if it were ever to be my responsibility to put up the tree and subsequently (the part I detested the most) take it down, we were going to buy an artificial tree. We did...some 15 years ago. Except for the fact that it lacks the unmistakable fragrance of a freshly cut Evergreen, it looked then and still does today, like one of Mother Nature's finest efforts.

So, again one might ask, "What's big deal?" You see...I'm a perfectionist. I believe that if it's worth doing it's worth doing it better than anybody else (as though there is some committee that goes around judging how well I put up and decorate my Christmas tree!). First I have to drag the tree down from the attic, unfurl its many branches, which takes the better part of an hour...then check and recheck to make sure that it is absolutely straight. Then comes the lights. If you are worth your salt as a certified Christmas tree decorator you know that you can't just throw the lights on any which-away. You have to put them on in such a manner so that you get even coverage and intertwine the strands as though they were part of the tree to begin with. And I have enough lights on our tree that when I throw the switch the lights in the neighborhood go dim! (Sounds like Chevy Chases' Christmas decorating antics, doesn't it?). Placing the lights "just so" takes another couple of hours.

Next comes the task of placing all the ornaments on the tree that we have collected over the years...and Bubba, we've got some collection! My dearest wife has an ornament (or two, or three) from every place we have ever visited over the years and additional ornaments that serve as special remembrances of other sentimental occasions:"Our First Christmas, 1983...Baby's First Christmas, 1985...First Lunar Eclipse, 1986...First Transmission Replacement, 1987...stuff like that...and each must again be placed "Just so," so as to not upset the symmetry of the tree. Now we're talking another two hours at minimum. Admittedly it wouldn't take nearly as long if I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time taking breaks to determine who was winning the current college football game on TV. But hey, "All work and no play!" You get my drift. Before you know it an entire day has been devoted to putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. But, "Boy howdy," it's a doozie...even if I do say so myself.

So, that's how I spent this past Saturday. Judi came in from her gift wrapping in the back of the house to pronounce my efforts most worthy of her praise and, in the same breath, put me on notice that "next year we are going to get a live tree." I protested to no avail, suggesting that to find a "moderately priced tree that would compare even remotely to that which we already possessed was an oxymoron, much like the term "cheap gas." Said she, "Well, be that as it may, that's what we're going to do." Not wishing to wimp out in the face of over-whelming odds, I retorted, "Fine...I'll put it up but you have to take it down. See how you like having your skin lashed with dozens of needle pricks!" "It's a deal," said she in reply. And if you believe that I've got a dozen acres of prime Florida swamp land I'll sell you real cheap! I'm not looking forward to Christmas 2008.