I love Christmas! Love! It hasn't been a life-long love affair. For a little while, in the middle, I was kind of over it. But it's back now baby! The funny part is, I don't even care if I get anything. I love the giving. Paying attention and giving the perfect gift. The unexpected. The one they didn't think anyone paid attention to. That gift. Priceless.
As a child, Christmas was magical. Dad loved Christmas. And he did Christmas like everything else with a style all his own! Or, the tackier the better. He had a lot of great qualities, taste was not one of them. Being colorblind factored into it certainly but it was more than that, it was his absolute inability to edit. Every idea, according to Dad, was a good one and needed to be accommodated. Some how. Somewhere.
You have no idea how much garland, fishing wire, and tinsel were lost to Dad's quest for Christmas decorating perfection.
First things first.
The Tree. Not just any tree. The Perfect Tree. A Scotch Pine. Oh, the tree, couldn't be any Scotch Pine. It had to be the biggest, the fullest, the christmas-treeiest of all trees on the lot. He would not tolerate bare spots or other disfigurements. This was Christmas. This was the centerpiece of his decorating madness. The crowning glory of his vision.
I don't think Dad ever paid full price for a tree. Hell, I'm not sure he paid any price for a tree, ever. People gave stuff to him cause he was a nice guy. He was always the first to offer help and would stay there, at the lot, carrying trees to cars, tying them to rooftops, just helping out a busy guy. For an hour of his time, doing what he loved - shooting the breeze - he would come home with a tree. Dad was smart. He did his shopping, picked out his tree, and brought it up to pay. Then, he would start with the chit-chat and the helping. And when it was time to go, he'd go to pay, and tree-guy was like "nope, we're good. Merry Christmas." It was a true talent.
He would drive up Sheridan Street, tree tied to the roof of whatever car he was currently driving, the sisters all excited. Waiting. Anticipating. Dad would park and unload the tree. It would be monstrous. The tallest tree we had ever seen. It towered over everything near it. That folks, that is when the fun would start. Getting it in the house. No easy feat when you purchase a fifteen foot tree for a home with nine foot ceilings!
Wrestling the tree into the house to gauge it's true height, Dad would then start with the "trimming". Usually 3-4 feet before the tree could be safely placed in the stand and slid into the box bay in the living room. We would be admonished to leave it alone. Decorating would take place the following day.
The tree trimming doesn't stand out in my memory. Most vivid, to me, is the wrestling and the chopping. Taming the tree into the confines of the living room and the box bay. I remember some cussing as bulbs blew out and wires tangled. As we all got older, the trees got bigger. One year he cut so much off the top of the tree, we had two trees. One for the living room and one for the playroom.
But the tree was just the beginning of the decorating on-slaught. The true decorations were yet to come.
Stay tuned for the next installment of Christmas memories. Wherein Jim bends wire hangers to his will and another family legend is born.
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