The time had come.
We had no more excuses. No more activities, no more company, no more other tasks to do.
It was time and past to put up the tree my husband had purchased at the after Christmas sales last year.
Because I had to work last year, he had gone by himself and returned proudly announcing, “I got a $200 pre-lit tree for 50 percent off and then 75 percent off that,” he said. I did some quick calculations and came up with $25 for a realistic looking tree.
I didn’t think we really needed another tree. I had already replaced our 20-year-old artificial tree with a cute 4-footer which I had decorated and intended to drag in and out of storage without stripping off the decorations.
But he bought a ceiling scraper and tucked it into storage until Christmas time rolled around again.
Christmas time had rolled around once again.
But, first we had excuses …
Monday, he had a new set of magazines to read.
Tuesday, I wasn’t home to help him.
Wednesday, neither of us was home.
Thursday, we both were home. “It is time to set up the tree,” I said.
He slid over to the computer. “I just want to get on the Internet and look up …”
“No, first you need to set up that tree you bought.”
He pushed away from the computer, stood up and hauled the box in from the garage.
He stacked the three or four tiers of greenery with lights. One layer did not light up.
“It’s either a wire or a light,” he sighed and scrounged around in the box looking for additional lights. He found fuses and instructions. He actually read the booklet for his high-tech tree. Then he set to work changing the fuses, wiggling the wires and began the arduous task of changing out light bulbs.
The first bulb he touched lit up the tree.
Pleased at the quick solution, he circled the tree, pulling out branches to make it look fuller.
“Well, where are the decorations?” he asked looking at me.
“Decorations? You bought the bigger tree. I already decorated my tree,” I protested.
I went out to the store room, picked up my little tree with decorations of dolls, planes and trains, brought it in and thunked it on the table. “I decorated a tree.”
He was sitting on the couch. He looked at the big tree. “I think this tree needs strings of popcorn.”
“Are you going to string them?”
“No, I just thought I could have a snack.”
I had no intentions of stringing popcorn while he had a snack. I found a few boxes of decorations for his tree. They were all spheres: Glass spheres, spheres of thread, spheres of decoupaged Victorian paper and ribbons.
“That’s about enough,” he said looking at the tree with half of the glass bulbs on it.
I pointed out the rest of the decorations.
“We don’t have hangars for them.”
I looked at Mr. Inventive, and rolled my eyes. He could not figure out how to hang a bulb without a manufactured hangar?! I scrounged in the desk drawer, pulled out paper clips and began untwisting and hooking them onto bulbs and the tree. He reluctantly joined me.
I unfolded and flopped the tree skirt around the base of the tree.
We found a few stray decorations to filled in a few bare spots and declared it finished.
The empty boxes from the tree and decorations cluttered the living room, but we did not move them. We had completed the chore of decorating the tree. Cleaning up was another night.
It was time to surf the net.
jhershberger@eldoradonews.com