Wednesday, November 30, 2005

O Tanenbaum

One of the things that happens when one’s grandmother dies – particularly if the accompanying grandfather is also deceased – is that the whole family gets to come together and Clean Out the House, which is terribly sad, but, let’s face it, also an opportunity to acquire new belongings. I don’t mean to sound unfeeling, but that tired saying is true: You can’t take it with you.

And boy howdy, did she ever leave it. My grandmother was a spendthrift; my grandfather was a packrat. We found garbage bags filled with empty yogurt containers stored in the basement along with approximately 40 empty milk gallons and 10 cans of paint mixed in the 1950s. We found every pair of eyeglasses my grandfather ever owned tangled in a dresser drawer. We found shipping boxes from various home shopping networks, many of which were unopened despite having been ordered during the Reagan administration. My brother hauled away three dump truck loads before we even started assembling items for the estate sale.

There were a few useful items among the detritus. Thanks to the dearly departed, Marc and I now have All The Things We Didn’t Have Before, such as a proper stereo. We like music but are not particularly zealous about it; thusly we usually listen to music over the laptop speakers. We also acquired a cedar chest, a brand new toaster oven, a set of china, and a garlic press. Oh, yes, and a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree that is threatening to end our marriage.

Towards the end of the estate sale, I noticed that no one had purchased the six-foot-tall artificial tree my grandmother kept up year-round in the living room (don’t ask), so I asked Marc whether we should take it home. He hedged a bit, because we’ve had a disagreement for most of our married life about whether we should have a real Christmas tree or a fake one, and this is the first year of our relationship that we’re attempting to have an actual, life-sized tree. My husband maintains that real trees are far superior to artificial: they look and smell better, plus you get to throw them out on the street when you’re done with them. I agree with him that real trees are more aesthetically pleasing. My counterargument is threefold:

1. I am allergic to pine needles; decorating real Christmas trees literally gives me hives.
2. Oy. The pine needles with the falling off the tree and the all over the carpet. I don’t want to vacuum every day.
3. We have cats.

The last argument is the strongest and most important due to a very simple, logical credo: It is possible for a cat to climb a real tree. It is, conversely, impossible for a cat to climb a fake tree. I am unwilling to spend approximately 1/12th of the rest of my life thrusting my arms into an allergen-containing spruce to become further injured in the process of extracting reluctant, pointy animals. Just no.

Marc could not argue with my logic, and so we stuffed my grandmother’s Christmas tree into the car and drove it to Cleveland. En route, we began discussing the manner in which we would decorate the tree. He asked whether we could purchase and spray that foul, canned snow substance on the limbs of our artificial tree. I took his suggestion and snapped it like a twig over my knee. “Are you insane?” I asked. “If you spray fake snow on a fake tree, you will never be able to get the fake snow off the fake tree. We’d have to turn the hose on it, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do that in January. Not to mention the fact that it’ll get all over the red furniture. Besides which, I’m pretty sure that shit is toxic.”

“Fine,” Marc said. “But garland. Do we have any garland?”

I asked him to refer back, please, to argument #3 in the pro-synthetic tree argument: Cats … we have them. Do you have any idea what happens when you have garland on a Christmas tree in a house that contains cats? Do you? I’ll tell you. The cats eat the garland, is what, and because garland is indigestible, the garland eventually reappears at the other end of the cat, except not all the way out, and then you spend the entirety of your December running around tugging at the silver stringy bits dangling from kitty cornholes. I love my animals, but I'm not at all interested in direct contact with their anuses.

Then came the inevitable discussion of lights. I said white lights; he said colored lights. Colored lights that flashed and dimmed and sparkled and performed all manner of unnecessary tricks. Colored lights that we don’t have in deference to the 300 miles of non-animated colored lights that we have in the basement. Colored lights that cost $7 per strand.

Fine. I relented. He gave up his real tree and his snow and garland; I will give up my dream of our tree not looking like something out of a Jean Shepherd novel. But mark my words, the outdoor lights are going to be simple, classy, and white. Just like me. Except I don't have the simple and classy parts. 
posted by Kate at 4:26 PM link/comments