Cate woke up this morning and after giving me my morning hug, went right into the front room and plugged in the Christmas tree lights. She's been my tree-light-plugger-inner for most of the season.
I told her that she could help me take the tree down soon because Christmas is over. She got tears in her eyes and asked me where we'd put the tree until next year. I said we'd put it in the garbage but most likely it'll get tossed into the back yard in the hopes that the snow will cover it up until spring when I can chop it into little pieces and toss it out with the green waste. Let's be realistic here. I'm sure there's a Christmas tree dump site somewhere in town but we're lazy.
She did not like that idea at all. More tears in her eyes. Sad pouting lips. I explained that it used to be alive in the forest until our friends chopped it down for us. Now it's dying so we have to be done with it and just have a new one next Christmas.
More sad face. So I just told her never mind. We'll leave it up a while longer. Poor kid. I guess someone else in our family loves that tree more than I do. I've enjoyed staying up way too late this month just so I can lay on the couch and stare at it. When I take my glasses off it's even more awesome because the lights are blurry. In all honesty, I've also been watching all 6 seasons of Lost late at night this month too so I don't actually just lay on the couch, stare at the tree and think. I hate just sitting and thinking. Nothing good ever comes of it for me.
I know some people rid their houses of all traces of Christmas the day after. Even on the very same day. I can't even imagine the horror. I don't understand that thinking at all but to each his own. After all the struggle and stress and freaking out stringing those lights cause me I'm leaving that sucker up for as long as I possibly can. I figure there's some sort of tradition about the twelve days of Christmas ending on Epiphany and that's somewhere around January 6th so that's what we're aiming for.
Or maybe after Grama Bama and Grandpa leave to go back to Alabama. That might buy me a few more days of enjoying our dying tree, unlit bottom branch, crooked spine and all.
