Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Honolulu Lite
HELP! My Christmas tree has fallen and it can't get up! There are few things sadder than a fallen Christmas tree. But there it was on Sunday, lying pathetically on its side, just a day after we lovingly cloaked it in the annual cavalcade of tackiness that passes for holiday decoration in our household. The annual battle
of the tannenbaumThe incident was heart-wrenching, but did answer one of life's great philosophical questions: When a Christmas tree, all alone, falls over, does it make a sound? The answer is a sickening yes. It sounds like memories being crushed underfoot. It sounds like fragile glass panes of happiness shattering. It sounds like Jackie Gleason just fell on his face while carrying a trayful of martini glasses.
Christmas trees are a major holiday issue at our house, ever since I went avant garde a few years ago and bought five Norfolk Island Pines instead of a traditional fir-type tree. I thought it would be cool to use live trees and then, after the holidays, plant them in the yard. So I arranged the Norfolks in such a way that, to me, they looked like one large fir-type tree. Everyone else thought they looked like a clump of five little Norfolk Island Pines. Not to mention they emitted no Christmas tree smell, a major holiday violation.
So I went to a Christmas tree dealer and bought the bottom half of a fir tree that had been discarded ($5! -- a great deal in the annals of family tree purchases). Then I cut it up, using the limbs to decorate the fireplace mantle and various tables, thereby dispersing the official Christmas tree "smell" around the house. The traditionalists were not amused.
From then on, I was under strict orders to buy only official fir trees from the U.S. Northwest. This year, we picked a tree that stood almost 9 feet tall. The man told me it was a Noble Fir. Having lived in Oregon, I recognized the specimen as a plain old, run-of-the-forest Douglas Fir, but feeling in the Christmas spirit and being shot daggers from the eyes of my daughter, I paid the inflated Noble Fir price without haggling.
We took it home and cut off about a foot of it (about $40 worth). Looking over us while we trimmed the monster were the five Norfolk Pines, still in their little black plastic pots, having never been planted. They have endured a two- year drought and general lack of attention, yet seem to have a fierce will to live. I sensed they were upset at the sight of this year's interloper, in the way that a movie star who received an Oscar one year is relegated to the back rows the next.
In any case, we decorated the new tree with all of the family ornaments, remembering the significance of each one. Some had been in the family for generations. Others were future heirlooms. Others were hunks of junk. And when we were done, the tree was gaudy to the extreme.
There are several theories as to how the tree came to fall down within 24 hours of being decorated. Most centered on me having screwed up putting the tree trunk in the tree stand.
I don't think so.
I also don't think that, embarrassed by the garishness of its adornments, the tree simply tried to commit suicide. I think something more sinister was involved. I think those five ticked-off Norfolk Island Pines snuck in when we weren't looking and pushed the new tree over. I have no proof. But I swear, they're looking awfully smug lately.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
The Honolulu Lite online archive is at:
https://archives.starbulletin.com/lite