The Real Christmas Fruit Cake

This piece orriginally ran December 9, 2007, but Christmas specials recycle every year so why not blogs?

We bought an artificial tree this year. Up until now, I had staunchly vowed never to buy a fake tree. I thought plastic trees were as evil as Charlie Brown and Linus thought they were in the Christmas special. I had also vowed never to eat fruit cake.

In both cases, I mocked what I did not understand. As an adult, I’ve actually tasted good fruit cake. It was homemade, scrumptious and left me wanting more. When we assembled the tree and I had a similar epiphany. I didn’t have to sweep half the branches out the door from unpacking it. I wouldn’t have to water it! I didn’t have to crawl underneath, pine sap dripping on me to screw the trunk into the base. I wouldn’t have to water it! The lights were already on it. I wouldn’t have to water it! So I was in an instant perfect Christmas mood and I didn’t have to water it.

Putting on classical Christmas music, I brought up the ornaments from the basement, anticipating, no savoring, a “to be treasured family moment.” Sighing happily, my brain exploded with a holiday list. “We’ll decorate the tree and set up the crèche and take a picture all in our Christmas sweaters and bake cookies…” I had briefly channeled Martha Stewart.

It lasted exactly five minutes and forty three seconds.

After the initial rush of opening boxes and “oohing” at beautiful ornaments had waned, the children began to reassert their personalities.

With eighteen hands reaching into boxes all at the same time, there was a lot of gentle patient nudging. I smiled benevolently and turned the music up a notch. In retrospect, now would have been a good time to sip a bit of Christmas wine.

Ornament placement became a problem. One child started snatching up prime locations on the tree like they were Boardwalk and Park Place. Then there was the “She got all the good ornaments!” issue. A daughter had taken to stockpiling all of the choice pieces. She was bartering with the squatter.

It had to happen. Someone was on a step ladder, someone was hanging a glass ball using a paperclip as a hook, someone wanted their silver reindeer in front of a light, somehow somebody hit the ornament the wrong way and ...“Crash.”

There were great accusations and denials as to who hung the now crushed glass green ball. Clearing out its remains jostled the wiring. Then of course the lights on the tree wouldn’t light on one side. Wrestling with the tree caused a few more ornaments to fall. I turned off the radio with a bit of a sigh. My Christmas mood was fading.

Meanwhile, on the floor disassembling the nativity scene, three not so wise ones were arguing over who got to play with the sheep and who got stuck with the cow. A smug looking older sibling opted to appear pious by hanging only angels, while lecturing on what was “appropriate.” The squabbles lead to two children stomping off. The oldest used the commotion to bug out to play Nintendo, followed quickly by his sister. That left the adults, two toddlers, the baby and one overly helpful kindergartner who only wanted to use the step ladder.

“That’s enough!” I yelled.

I turned on the radio, finding the All Christmas all the time station. “I’m putting on this Season's schmaltziness tunes. Come back here all of you! That means YOU! We’re going to have a Christmas moment and you will feel maudlin sentiment about your family even if I have to play “Christmas Shoes” to get it!”

Five seconds of silence and then recognizing the clear and present danger that loomed, from all directions they came running.

“Mom! I’m coming. Look, I brought our stockings!”

“I’m playing Holly Jolly Christmas on my Trombone!”

“Me next, I’ll do Jingle Bells on the piano.”

“Hey Dad, can we hang lights outside? Please?”

Within minutes, all was calm, all was bright. The tree sparkled, some of the kids were outside trimming the house and a memory had been created. Sweeping up the last of the broken pieces, I looked over at the baby, asleep in her bouncer and the toddlers who are busy playing with some bells. The nativity scene has a hot wheel and a reindeer added to it and is missing a sheep. Martha Stewart wouldn’t approve but I do. My husband brought me a glass of Christmas wine.

“There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays…” played on the radio.
Maybe I’m pushing it if I tell them this year I think we should make homemade fruit cake.

Why We have an Artificial Tree

I got tagged for a blog chain, which means I write about something that has something to do with what the last person wrote about in her blog (Thanks Ello!), she wrote about Christmas shopping and it's traditional insanity. I decided to go with the insanity that comes from getting the Tree...

When we first got married, we lived in New York City and had a dinky little cute live tree for our first Christmas. When we lived in a bigger apartment in Houston, we decorated the live ficus tree. When we moved to Maryland, we finally decided, we’d get a real Christmas tree. It was a very snowy winter and my husband had found a “Cut Your Own Tree” place, meaning we’d pay for the privilege of doing all the work.

It was a crystal clear star filled evening as my husband, young son and I marched through the rows of carefully tended evergreens to find “Our tree.”
Finally, the right amount of bushiness, greenness and tallness had been agreed upon, and the fun of welding an ax began.

For the first five minutes that one holds an ax, there are simultaneous sensations in the experience. There is the thrill of having a very sharp weapon (I can take on a bear!) and terror that somehow, someone is going to get hurt and you’re holding the ax. (Oh look, a bear!)

Chopping Wood looks like clean organized manly work. There is a rhythm to splitting wood, to chopping trees, and all the movies and fairy tales indicate that this is something men do with aplomb when not rescuing women from prisons or wizards or castles or something. My husband swung the ax. It hit the tree.

A little physics lesson here. Force must be distributed. Hitting a tree is like having a car accident with a tree. The force travels up the ax, into your hands and wrists and even jars your teeth if your feet are not set. Okay. We set the feet. We swing like a baseball player. Chop. Chop. Chop.

See, it’s easy. Well, it’s easy to watch. Then we watch. Watching someone chop down a tree is…dull. “It’s cold.” My son whines (He’s three). He’s right but I’m trying to stay with the mood here. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. It is taking a very long time. The wind blows. Chop. Chop. “Can I have a go?”

“Sure.” I should have recognized the eagerness in his voice as a trigger. He picked up our son. “I’m going to go see the man about the rope. “

“You’re not going to watch?” I mean, I’m sure watching me chop wood is riveting viewing. Isn’t it?

“Well, we don’t want to be here all night.” He explained diplomatically.

“Point taken.”

I line up my feet. I square my shoulders. Chop. I missed the spot. Chop. Chop. I almost got it. Chop. This hurts. Chop. Chop. My feet are cold. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. Chop. I’m stuck. The ax is stuck. I’m stuck. It’s really stuck. I’m afraid to pull it out. I’m stuck here in the snow waiting. Now the tree seems less perfect to me.

I stare at it hard. Something stares back. There are spiders. Christmas spiders in my tree. We’re done. I’m done. I follow the snow prints. “Pay the man to cut down the tree.” I bark when I get back to the stand.

My husband is one step ahead, he’s already paid them and of course, the guy goes out there with a chain saw. “Where is the ambience in that?” I ask you?

Telling my husband about the spiders, he assures me that the spiders will be driven out of the tree by the drive on the freeway. I admittedly didn’t inspect but prayed he was right.

The tree wouldn’t fit in our front door so I ruined a good electric carving knife cutting it down to size. I mean it’s kind of like a chain saw and I didn’t own an ax. I freaked when one of the tree’s eight legged citizens came onto my hand as I cut. “You told me they’d be blown away.” We spent a few nervous minutes –all either of us could tolerate, searching for more arachnids. I issued a proclamation to any remaining squatters. “Attention spiders! No mercy unless you can spell in your web: Peace on Earth!”

Finally, it was up, watered, decorated to within an inch of its life and glistening. I breathed a sigh of Christmas contentment. The tree listed. Then it fell. We picked it up, swept the floor of broken glass ornaments, redecorated and reattached the tree to the stand. It fell again.

My husband drove to a local store that was open late while I put our son to bed. He returned with a larger stand and we rerepotted the tree in the stand and screwed in the sides tight. He put a brick inside the stand to give the stand a fighting chance against the tree. It fell a third time. It was Christmas and our tree was imitating the Stations of the Cross.

And so we had our first REAL Christmas, like so many families before us, where the tree was propped by fishing line at the top to ensure that Old Tanembaum with it’s lovely branches wouldn’t crush our son as he admired the remaining ornaments. I told him the spider webs were just an organic form of tinsel.

Merry Christmas!