Oh Christmas Tree!

Have you put your Christmas tree up already?

For the last few years, we’ve started putting ours up a little early. I know, doing Christmas things before Thanksgiving is a highly controversial topic. But, don’t hate on us because we’re early birds. We celebrate Thanksgiving with my husband’s family on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and then that evening, we start the Christmas movies, pull out the tree and start our decorating. Over the years, my husband unloads our closet filled with Christmas boxes, hauls the tree box to the living room, and handles putting the tree together perfectly. Over the years, he’s taught Little Buddy exactly what to do to the point that he did the bulk of the assembly this year.

But, as simple as it sounds, as soon as the door to the Christmas closet opens, I’m always reminded of when my family would put up our Christmas tree as I was growing up. We had the same artificial tree the whole time I lived at home and I feel sure my parents had it for at least a decade prior to that! Each branch of the tree had to fit into color-coded slots in the trunk of the tree. The branches were similarly color-coded, yet through the years, the colors had faded and worn to the point that we were never certain if the red was red, pink, or orange. Let me just say, it made for a interesting looking tree until Mama would come behind us all to correct it! That and all the silver tinsel my sister and I draped across it made it look magical.

Thankfully though, the engineering of artificial trees has progressed light years from that tree.

While my husband and Little Buddy are dealing the mechanics of the tree, I’m always busily stringing the popcorn for our garland.

Since my husband and I married 19 years ago, I think I’ve strung miles of popcorn garland for our Christmas tree. It was a tradition that his family had of his Mimi stringing popcorn for their family Christmas tree as he was growing up. It was a tradition that he wanted to continue with our family, unlike me with our silver tinsel! Ha!

I always forget the undertaking it is to string all of the popcorn, especially the years we had a real Christmas tree. Have you ever noticed that a Christmas tree never looks as tall or a large at the Christmas tree farm as it does when you set it up in your home?

There have been years that we couldn’t even walk through one area of the living room the tree was so wide! Those years, the popcorn took days to string to have enough for the garland. I’d always resolve right then and there that that was the last year for popcorn garland and yet, the next year as the holidays rolled around, I’d have forgotten my resolution and was pulling out my needle and the fishing line and was busily stringing.

Don’t tell my family, but that way, I am assured that I will avoid all engineering issues of tree assembly. I think my husband’s Mimi was on to something! I just wish I’d known about it growing up!
Signed,
Head Popcorn Stringer