Traffic was terrible Sunday. It was the Sunday after a holiday weekend, rain was pouring down, and I was stuck between Nashville and Chattanooga on I-24 on my way home to Atlanta. For those of you who have never had the privilege of driving on I-24, you basically spend about half an hour gradually climbing a mountain while 18-wheeler drivers who have not yet mastered the concept of gravity try to pass each other. This slow and frustrating climb is followed by a 20 second descent on the other side of the mountain at Mach 3. Add in holiday traffic and a steady rain and you can imagine the fun we had coming home.
After we got home, we (Sara) decided that it was time to put up the Christmas tree. We have this ginormous artificial 9 foot tree that would make Clark Griswold proud (if it weren’t plastic). Interesting note: my spell check actually recognizes “Griswold”. Anyway, it takes a couple of hours to put this monstrosity together.
After lugging the heavy, bulky box up from the basement, I realized that some of the lights went out last year and we needed new ones. More driving, more delays, more frustration.
Sara ran out to Home Depot to get some lights while I got started on the tree. If you’ve ever had an artificial tree, you know how long it takes to bend the wires out on each branch to make the thing look realistic. Sara came back over a half hour later and I had not even completed a third of it. When she came in, she said that it smelled like Christmas.
My response was, “What… dust and plastic?” We don’t have a real tree because I have asthma. I’m beginning to think that our 12 year-old artificial tree has far more allergens than anything God created.
Of course, the whole time this is going on, we have two little girls begging to “help” put up the tree and a dog that never seems to move but is always laying right where I want to stand… odd. I finally finished assembling the tree, putting on the lights, and helping run all the beads, banners, and other items that require someone taller than 5’ 8”. As I made my way toward my chair to watch a little football, I realized the star on top was not lighting up.
Fifteen minutes with this star and I realized it will never light up again. I finally called it quits and put the unlit star back on top. Of course, I wasn’t quite done yet. I had to vacuum up all the little green plastic “needles” that fell off the tree. I am amazed that this thing doesn’t look like the Charlie Brown tree yet. It’s shed more plastic in the past 12 years than a Dave Ramsey convention.
Exhausted, frustrated, and hungry, I finally washed my hands of the tree project (literally – that thing is covered in dust). That’s when I saw my little girls hanging their ornaments and loving every second of it. I guess that’s why we always have such fond memories of putting up the Christmas tree… in July.
