Oh Christmas Tree


This is my tree this year. It looks a little Charlie Brown, but that’s ok, because it was free.

Somebody bought me a nativity scene when I got married. I felt a little funny about putting it under my tree. After a bit of deliberation, I set it up yesterday afternoon. I really like the animals. But I also feel like I should have some other artifacts under there, to reflect my religious uncertainty. So I need some crafty ideas. Things that encompass the entire holiday season. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, whatever. Any ideas? What could I make?

Even though I was raised Catholic, and my parents sent me to Catholic school, we rarely went to church. My church going days were during the week with my class. And we never had a nativity set up under our tree. My mom had this awesome antique little town that she’d always let me set up, with houses and a barn and even a little pond with a bridge and little metal cars and people. There was even a little hunter guy holding up a rifle. My brother and I would play for hours with that shit. I wish she still had that, because I’d repaint it all and set that up. My parents don’t even bother setting up a big tree anymore, which I find sort of depressing. They have this little fiber optic tree that they put up.

My dad used to go crazy with the Christmas tree. His job was to set it up, (we never had a real tree, since my parents were both neat freaks and didn’t like needles all over the place), and then he’d decorate it. Once he was done you couldn’t even tell there was a tree under there. It would be so shiny, because he’d wrap about 30 feet of garland around it and drape it with those metallic icicles. Even though they never got a real tree because of the needles, those icicles, much like plastic Easter grass, would be all over the house. And year after year when we got our tree out, there would still be icicles from the last year embedded in the needles, but he would put a fresh coating of them on. I’ve got to find some pictures of that old tree. Maybe my tree needs some crazy icicles to fill in the holes.

Only 17 days left of retail hell before all the returns start coming in.

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