The First Casualty of Christmas

It's an ornament from a high school dance, apparently given out as a souvenir. Now it's in the garbage. But you know what this means, we must be decorating our tree. To do that we would have had to actually gotten a tree. Last year we got the live tree with the root ball attached, remember? We were planning to do that again this year, and then maybe after Christmas when all the trees were on sale we'd get an artificial one for the future. Last year we lucked out after Christmas because the ground wasn't frozen yet so we were able to plant the tree right away. If we hadn't done so, it would have died and that would even worse than killing a tree by cutting it down; letting a perfectly good replantable tree die would have just been negligence.

This year winter crept up on us and before we had a chance to think about digging the hole ahead of time, the ground was frozen. We debated chancing it, but ultimately decided that if we were to spend $60 or so on a live tree then get a fake one half price after Christmas, we would probably end up shelling out about the same amount of money by just avoiding the live tree and going straight to the artificial one before Christmas.

So we got a tree; we looked around a lot, took a whole week to decide whether or not we actually wanted an artificial one and then finally picked one out over the weekend. We did it mostly because we're actually in a Christmas mood this year. And we did it so early too! What's up with that? we keep asking ourselves. I hate Christmas. I usually put off thinking about it for as long as I can and then can't wait for it to go away. For at least two weeks now we've been listening to the Christmas music station on the radio round the clock, Jacob and I have been coloring in this Christmas coloring book Stella gave him, we've been making Christmas crafts. I've even started Christmas shopping already! And how many more times can I mention 'Christmas' in one paragraph?

We even decorated the tree. It's the earliest I've ever had a tree up in my life. Last year we put it up three days before Christmas. What happens now? Am I going to get sick of it before Christmas is here?

Zach and I are thinking maybe it's because we're in the 'family way'. I don't know, I haven't been pregnant at Christmas before, so it's either that or it's some weird once-in-a-
decade occurrence whereupon you can actually stand the holiday for once. But then of course one full-out Christmas season is enough to last you until another 10 years go by and you can go back to hating it.