Christmas Traditions—The Tree

Today begins a sporadic series of recollections about Christmases past, wherein I shall attempt to describe my some of my family's least-traumatic holiday traditions. I suspect that my early youth was not unlike those of most of my contemporaries. Pretty Cleaver-esque -- and not all that far removed from "It's a Wonderful Life", except that we didn't have any cranky wheelchair-driving misers trying to destroy us.

Without the benefit of a Hollywood budget for writers and wardrobe, my dad may have lacked Ward Cleaver's flair for turning a lost dime into a major life lesson, and my mom didn't always match June's elegant kitchen fashionability. And come to think of it, I didn't have any friends like Eddie Haskell, either. (Herbert the Pervert didn't get that nickname until we were in high school; he was just "Herbie" back then.) But otherwise, we pretty much fit the middle America family mode. We got a tree every Christmas, and decorated the crap out of it.

During that timespan, there were two years where we got a "live" tree, which was a small blue spruce with one of those big upside-down-tootsie-pop root balls on it. We stuck it in a big galvanized tub and hauled it into the living room, same as we'd do with a chopped-down tree. We'd decorate it the same, too -- the only difference was that the gifts didn't quite fit under it the same way, and when New Years came, we'd go dig a hole in the frozen tundra of the back yard and plant the sucker. Both those trees are probably still growing in that yard, and enriching the environment with sweet, sweet oxygen. Yes, that's right -- my family was "green" long before it was popular. Oh yeah.

Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. We only got the "live" ones because we had a spot in the yard that really needed an evergreen for aesthetic purposes. Most years we bought dead trees just like everybody else. We always bought them from the church lot, where the profits were used to buy supplies for the Christmas Eve "Candlelight" service. (In retrospect, I'm not sure how wise it was to give every single man, woman, and child a lighted flame to carry around inside the sanctuary, but I don't believe anything other than wax ever got burned. I do remember my brother and I daring each other to drip the hot wax onto our hands...and how cool we thought it was to have that extra layer of "fake skin" that the wax coating provided. It stung a bit when it hit the flesh, but it cooled quickly and no permanent harm was done. Of course, our parents would tell us to stop, but...we were boys and we had fire, and everyone knows that parental instructions have no power under such circumstances.)

As Boy Scouts, we were expected to work at the church tree lot. Not to handle money or anything, but to help little old ladies lift the trees onto their vehicles, and to use our knot-typing expertise to ensure that they'd have to use an industrial-strength machete to release the thing once they got it home. The trees were shipped to us wrapped in that plastic netting material that looks like a cafeteria worker's white hairnet, but is a thousand times stronger. They just discarded the stuff after the trees were unwrapped, and I thought "Hey, I could probably make something out of that". I collected a big wad of it and took it home.

A week or so later, I took the wad of plastic into my dad's workshop in the back corner of the basement. I figured that since plastic could be melted and molded, I ought to be able to apply a bit of heat, reshape the stuff, and make my own cool, custom toys. My dad had a handy-dandy little propane blowtorch, and I had my Boy Scout fire-handling skills, so I set about my task with no worries.

Unfortunately, the netting didn't behave like I thought it would. I expected it to soften (possibly become liquid) and allow me to create my artistic plastic masterpieces. Instead, it bubbled, turned brown, and began to emit fumes. Hmmm, I thought, perhaps I'm just holding the torch too close. I backed off a few inches and kept on a-meltin'.

Somewhere inside my brain, though, there must've been a self-preservation alarm...and it finally went off. "Terry," it said, "this stuff isn't melting -- it's decomposing into sludge and gases. And since there's no ventilation in here and we have no idea what those gases contain, it's probably best if you shut off the torch."

My conscious brain of course replied with "But I'm using a blowtorch on plastic stuff. It's really cool!"

Eventually, though, the my rational subconscious won the debate, and I snuffed the flame. I went outside to get some fresh air, and after a while returned to take the remaining netting and toss it in the trash. That particular experiment was never repeated.

The other Christmas tree traditions, however, were pretty much the same from year to year. First, Dad would wrap the lights round and round the tree. These were the big, multi-colored, old-style incandescent light bulbs, of course -- not the tiny little LEDs that people use today. These suckers would get hot! And as pretty as the regular bulbs were, the ones I enjoyed most were the "bubble bulbs" -- little colored glass tubes that contained some kind of liquid that would bubble when hot...kinda like a bunch of miniature, tree-mounted lava lamps. Very cool. (Well, actually they were very hot. It seems like I got burned multiple times each year from scalding tree lights, but a few patches of tender red skin is a small price to pay for a tree that glows, warms, and bubbles throughout the holiday season.)

After the lights, the ornaments were installed. Ours were the very fragile, mirrored glass kind, and were all the same (except for hue). No "custom" ornaments were used -- we had a generic postcard-type tree. The only thing that changed was the topper: one year we'd use the angel, and the next we'd use the star. And once the lights, ornaments, and topper were installed, the kids were turned loose in a tinsel free-for-all. We'd cover every square inch of the thing with "icicles", and then throw on a few candy canes for good measure. Occasionally, somebody would get ambitious and make a popcorn string, and that would be looped around the tree as well.

Packages got piled around the foot of the tree, and the whole thing became the centerpiece for many family activities, from singing carols to listening to Mitch Miller or Steve & Edyie records to begging for Santa-shaped cookies and hot chocolate.

Now you may think that it would be a sad time when the tree was removed after New Years, but that's not necessarily true. We had a lot of fun removing and repacking the tinsel, lights, and ornaments. Putting things away became almost as much of a family-bonding experience as setting it up. It was all good, and it started the process of looking forward to the next December when we'd get to do it all again. It was never about the tree -- it's about the people.

Anyway, my friends, I hope that you and your families all have an excellent time with the holidays, and can enjoy whatever tree traditions you might have. And if you have none yet, well, I'd recommend that you get started creating them. You'll be glad you did. Have a great day!