one of your favorite things to do.”
With you . I held the guilt-inducing words back. With Cris, shopping for the perfect tree was my favorite holiday tradition. We made an event out of the whole thing. A thermos of hot cocoa with marshmallows in hand, we would wander through the tree lots looking for the perfect vehicle to display the antique and handmade ornaments that I inherited from my grandmother. We measured the distance between branches, studied every Scotch pine and every blue spruce, knowing all the while that we’d settle for a fragrant Douglas or red fir with its sturdy, widely spaced branches to show off the ornaments better.
I wasn’t so much looking forward to finding a tree alone, or decorating it alone. Hanging crocheted snowflakes, tinsel, and Grandma’s vintage glass bird ornaments wouldn’t have the same appeal without Cris’s firm grip guiding my hand to the perfect spot on the tree. He tried very hard, my Cris, not to let his obsessive demand for symmetry and order mar the holidays, but the twitching always got to be too much. I confess, I deliberately placed an ornament or two in an awkward spot just to feel his hand on mine, the heat of his body close behind me.
“Yeah. I’ll go when I get done here. Can you call me around four?” It would be a little bit better if I could talk to him about the choices, maybe send a photo of the final product.
“Ummm. I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.”
So I probably wouldn’t even get that solace. “Okay. Call if you can. I have to go. Work awaits.”
I hid in the stacks all day, shelving cart after cart of books, losing myself in the scent of leather and old paper. It beat working the counter where the aroma of pine from the decorative evergreen boughs—genuine, despite fire codes—and the peppermint of the candy dish just screamed Christmas. It beat smiling cheerfully and wishing sleep deprived young adults a happy holiday—because it was a state funded school and Merry Christmas was just too politically incorrect.
In the end, I didn’t bother with the measuring tape or the cocoa, just pointed my ‘67 Mustang straight for the nearest tree lot. Go in, pick a tree, go home, and set it up so the branches could drop. I could do this. I didn’t need Cris holding my hand to choose a tree.
My confidence in my ability to function as a rational adult was shaken when my first step on the tree lot brought tears to my eyes and bitterness to my heart. The scent of the pine trees made me nauseous, and the laughter of the kids running about chasing each other from Santa’s sleigh to the giant snowman cut-out made me weepy. I’d never been much of a people person, but I’d never felt such a need for companionship either. Being on the tree lot without Cris, I was lonely. Overwhelmingly so.
I didn’t have the heart to look around. Cris would have played tag with those kids. He would have coaxed me into the silly decorated sleigh and charmed some passing stranger into taking our picture.
I grabbed the first tree I found that seemed less than six feet tall and more than four. The tree needed to be tall enough to set on the low table in front of the street-side window of my living room. Everything else, I could work around. So what if the ornaments didn’t line up perfectly because the branches weren’t symmetrical?
I wouldn’t say I wound up with a Charlie Brown tree, but the fact that the tree wasn’t perfect soothed me a bit. The fact that it cost about half what we normally paid shocked me. Who knew? Somehow I had always assumed a tree for under a hundred bucks was impossible to find. I dropped the change into a bell-ringing Santa’s bucket, feeling a bit better about both myself and my tree.
Funny how that works; I hadn’t bought a cheaper tree intentionally to donate the rest of what I would have spent to any worthy cause. It just happened. And I felt the tiniest bit lighter, happier, afterward.
I helped the two lot workers in red
With you . I held the guilt-inducing words back. With Cris, shopping for the perfect tree was my favorite holiday tradition. We made an event out of the whole thing. A thermos of hot cocoa with marshmallows in hand, we would wander through the tree lots looking for the perfect vehicle to display the antique and handmade ornaments that I inherited from my grandmother. We measured the distance between branches, studied every Scotch pine and every blue spruce, knowing all the while that we’d settle for a fragrant Douglas or red fir with its sturdy, widely spaced branches to show off the ornaments better.
I wasn’t so much looking forward to finding a tree alone, or decorating it alone. Hanging crocheted snowflakes, tinsel, and Grandma’s vintage glass bird ornaments wouldn’t have the same appeal without Cris’s firm grip guiding my hand to the perfect spot on the tree. He tried very hard, my Cris, not to let his obsessive demand for symmetry and order mar the holidays, but the twitching always got to be too much. I confess, I deliberately placed an ornament or two in an awkward spot just to feel his hand on mine, the heat of his body close behind me.
“Yeah. I’ll go when I get done here. Can you call me around four?” It would be a little bit better if I could talk to him about the choices, maybe send a photo of the final product.
“Ummm. I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.”
So I probably wouldn’t even get that solace. “Okay. Call if you can. I have to go. Work awaits.”
I hid in the stacks all day, shelving cart after cart of books, losing myself in the scent of leather and old paper. It beat working the counter where the aroma of pine from the decorative evergreen boughs—genuine, despite fire codes—and the peppermint of the candy dish just screamed Christmas. It beat smiling cheerfully and wishing sleep deprived young adults a happy holiday—because it was a state funded school and Merry Christmas was just too politically incorrect.
In the end, I didn’t bother with the measuring tape or the cocoa, just pointed my ‘67 Mustang straight for the nearest tree lot. Go in, pick a tree, go home, and set it up so the branches could drop. I could do this. I didn’t need Cris holding my hand to choose a tree.
My confidence in my ability to function as a rational adult was shaken when my first step on the tree lot brought tears to my eyes and bitterness to my heart. The scent of the pine trees made me nauseous, and the laughter of the kids running about chasing each other from Santa’s sleigh to the giant snowman cut-out made me weepy. I’d never been much of a people person, but I’d never felt such a need for companionship either. Being on the tree lot without Cris, I was lonely. Overwhelmingly so.
I didn’t have the heart to look around. Cris would have played tag with those kids. He would have coaxed me into the silly decorated sleigh and charmed some passing stranger into taking our picture.
I grabbed the first tree I found that seemed less than six feet tall and more than four. The tree needed to be tall enough to set on the low table in front of the street-side window of my living room. Everything else, I could work around. So what if the ornaments didn’t line up perfectly because the branches weren’t symmetrical?
I wouldn’t say I wound up with a Charlie Brown tree, but the fact that the tree wasn’t perfect soothed me a bit. The fact that it cost about half what we normally paid shocked me. Who knew? Somehow I had always assumed a tree for under a hundred bucks was impossible to find. I dropped the change into a bell-ringing Santa’s bucket, feeling a bit better about both myself and my tree.
Funny how that works; I hadn’t bought a cheaper tree intentionally to donate the rest of what I would have spent to any worthy cause. It just happened. And I felt the tiniest bit lighter, happier, afterward.
I helped the two lot workers in red
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