From Real to Fake

We have a fake Christmas tree and I'm only a little not ashamed to admit it. This is practically sacrilege here in the Pacific Northwest, the Evergreen State, the home of lots of trees and at Christmas-time, lots of lots of trees. Oh, sure, there are photographs of the childhood me posing in front of an shiny silver tree which had its own cool color-changing spotlight, but when my family moved from the Midwest to the Northwest, all that fakery ended.

From that moment on, no more imitation trees. In fact, after my dad married his second wife, we took things a step farther and had living trees, their roots wrapped in burlap, in our living room. (We planted them after Christmas.) Some of my relatives had fake trees and I thought that was weird and wrong. (One of my great-aunts kept her fake tree up until February, which is beyond weird and wrong.)

When we moved to Michigan, our twins were 19 months old. Since we moved right before Thanksgiving, we decided not to have a tree at all. We reasoned that the boys would never remember and the daunting task of protecting a Christmas tree from lively almost-two-year olds was too much. But by the time they were three, we not only had a tree, but we did the fairytale family outing to a Christmas tree farm. We tromped through deep snow, pulling the children along by their arms, until at last, we found an acceptable tree.

Felling said tree was not a joyous holiday event. The saw the farm gave us was faulty or we were uncoordinated, but the task frustrated us and sucked the holiday joy right out of the experience.

That tree left sharp needles in our carpet which poked into our tender feet when we least expected it--even months later. And for whatever reason, I ended up being the person prone under the tree, wiggling and screwing the pitchy wood into the rickety tree stand. Snow melted and dripped into my eyes.

The next Christmas season found me great with child and I and my pregnant belly insisted that we get a fake tree. I couldn't stomach the thought of struggling with a real live Christmas tree. So we abandoned our smug family ideas and kissed the picture-worthy cutting down of tree outing goodbye and joined the fake tree club.

My husband purchased a fake tree at Sears for a hundred bucks. We've been using it ever since, so I figure that the current cost of that tree is about $12.50 a year. Do I miss the smell of an evergreen tree in the house? Sure. That's where Yankee Candles come in handy. Do I miss stepping on pine needles? No. Do I miss trying to keep a tree from becoming a flaming fire hazard? No.

Am I deeply ashamed to feature a fake tree in my home? Well, let's just say I am shallowly ashamed of my fake tree. At least it's a fake pretending to be real, unlike the silvery fake of my earliest days.