Tree trimmed

There are some traditions I stick with pretty easily and so far, getting a live Christmas tree for our apartment living is one of those holiday must haves. There's just no way around it, even if Nacho isn't onboard. I am, and that's all that matters. So after the Santa shoot, I found myself alone with the car and in plenty of time to swing over to Home Depot and wrangle the tree back by myself. Normally, I would dread this kind of thing, but I guess I was feeling all Christmasy from the kids loving their time with Santa plus it had just started snowing, so I felt merrily high and up for the trek. Even having to walk the length of the parking lot to find an empty shopping cart didn't deter me. The line of people waiting to get their trees tied up and paid for should have, but I parked my cart with a tree stand in it and went about selecting the perfect pine. 

The selection that Sunday afternoon left a lot to be desired. I tried finding anything but a balsam fir but there wasn't much choice. Then finally I spotted a nice looking 7-8 ft. fraser fir and my heart jumped. This was it. I stood it up and the trunk looked straight. Grabbing hold of it from the middle, I managed to pull it out and start the slow slump back to where my cart was. Only by the time I pushed and pleaded with people to move so I could pass, I returned to my little corner and found the cart had been taken. A woman was pushing an empty cart away and I politely but forcefully asked if that was my cart. "No!" she said and it seemed there was no chance for debate. Okay, I threw it up to the universe. "DID ANYONE TAKE MY CART THAT WAS PARKED HERE??" 

And just like that, a young boy of about 7-8 years said, "Oh, we did. Dad, I think that was her cart. Yeah, sorry..." And then he began to remove the items they had placed in it while his dad held firm to the tree and stared icily through me. "Well, I had a cart too and someone took mine. Maybe YOU took it?" he said. "What?? No, I went to get my cart in the parking lot." I waited for this to sink in but he didn't look like he was budging. The kid was the one who was telling him to give the cart back and much to my amazement after an awkward pause, he took the tree out and swung the empty cart my way. "THANKS. At least your kid knows how to do the right thing," I said and slung my tree in it before it could get away a second time. Merry fucking Christmas, asshole. Yeah, that's the holidays in NYC.

And that is how we came to have this beautiful, wonderful-smelling Christmas tree.  We let the girls throw some ornaments on it after I had carefully placed the lights and garland just so.  I'm still a little too like my mother about the tree. I don't like people messing it up before I've had a chance to lay the groundwork, so I guess there's some time for me to chill about that, but really, kids are the worst at doing this stuff right. Maybe once they're older I'll be better. Hopefully. But for now, they were mostly just interested in playing with the delicate glass balls and trying to make me crazy with how they couldn't really figure out the hanging part. Elisa could do the soft ornaments just fine, but I really hated to leave her with anything fragile and expect it to survive. Nacho did his only ornament (the Brooklyn Beer globe) and then he hoisted Elisa to the top to place our new dollar store star up above it all. Switching to color lights was a real hit this year, since I've stuck with white lights in the past. It's funny how much more I like it--maybe because it looks more like the Christmas trees of my own childhood. Whatever the reason, having a tree up makes it feel like this is the real deal. Santa is on his way...