WHO NEEDS PERFECTON?

 

A morning's sample of ads on the Weather Channel. Products for the perfect skin. Enough lights to blind the neighborhood for the perfect Christmas display. The perfect vehicle that will carry you up over the rocky trail to I'm not sure what. The perfect fake tree already decorated. All you have to do is plug it in. For all I know it comes with a little spray bottle so the room will smell something like the real thing.

Of course the real thing only smelled that good for a few days. And then the real fun began. Installing the tree in the tree stand. First you manhandled the tree into the stand. Then someone, probably dad, got on the floor. Then someone else, mom and later me when I was tall enough, held the tree up while dad screwed the darn thing in. Then we all stood back and decided whether the tree was standing up straight. It usually wasn't the first time around. Process reapeated until it was standing up straigt, or close to it. The critical examination began. Were the branches fairly even? Were there any gaps in the branches? If so that side went next to the wall or in a corner. We're talking late forties architectue here. Two bedroom, appriximately nine hundred square feet. It went by the wall or in a corner or else. That's a tree stand down there. WalMart. Eight feet wide. What's it supposed to take a Sitkae Spruce? Ours was more like three feet wide. Of course we only had eight foot ceilings.

Then the real fun began. That shot up above gives you an idea what the tree lights were like. And they were real little electric lights. They got hot just like the big lights. The trick was getting the string to light up. If a light was burned out or loose none of lights came on. We usually had a few spares just in case.Then the lights went on the tree being careful to keep the light bulbs away from the needles. And plugging the darn things in to make sure the lights still came on. LOL. Oh yeah, Those old houses didn't come with a lot of outlets so the tree had to be next to a handy outlet. You didn't leave it lit all the time. We usually plugged it in after supper and pulled the plug at bedtime. 

The rest was easy. Pulling out the carefully wrapped ornaments. Making sure everybody survived from last year. Checking the tinsel supply. Often that and a few light bulbs were all we resupplyed from year to year. Yeah it took time. But we did it together. And man, when we were finished it was a sight to behold. It may not have been perfect but it was ours. You filled the basin with water, had keep and eye on that. Put the tree skirt down to hide the base. Up the week before Christmas. Down by New Years. 

While we were in Oakridge I suspect dad sawed it up and the whole thing went into the burn barrel. In Springfield there were organizations that did pick up. Let you know when your neighborhood ws on the list and you were good for another year. It wasn't perfect. But nothing is. It was ours, those ornaments often had stories behind them added year by year and they were our stories.