I love Christmas in New York City. I love the Christmas season. While I don't go as bananas as my family, I've built my own little traditions over the last 3 decades of living, and I look forward to them immensely. Christmas cards, baking, wrapping presents, the annual viewing of the Christmas three: Sound of Music, White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life. All things that fill me with the goofiest of holiday warm fuzzies and turn me into a mushball like few things do.
Last year, I added a new tradition to the list (which, I think is only a tradition this year, given that I repeated the process in exactly the same way. That's how tradition works, right?)
Anyway, added to the list: buying the Christmas treee.
Growing up I was always allergic to fresh, or "real" trees as they were called in my family. It was something I never questionned, and we all worked around, my family scouring the country, literally, for the most real looking fake they could find, resulting in a basement with, seriously, at LEAST 8 artificial trees packed away, each an upgraded model of the last.
Last year, in a move of wild health be damned abandon, I decided to get a real tree. I really had no idea if I was actually still allergic, NEVER having had one before. I felt a weird longing whenver I passed one of the million tree stands that crop up on sidewalks all over the city after Thanksgiving. Plus, I had never put up a tree since I'd moved to the city, not having had the storage space for an artificial. I talked with my roommate about it, and we decided to go for it, Morgan giving us the most scrooge like of humbugs the entire time.
We scouted around and found a Christmas tree lot that sprung up in a parking lot behind a bar in downtown Brooklyn that advertised 6 foot trees for 19 bucks. We poked, we prodded, we haggled, and ended up plunking down $60 bucks on what had to be the most perfect tree ever. Not having a car, we carried it home on the bus, up four flights of stairs and decorated it, Morgan getting excited and joining in in spite of herself.
Fast forward to this year. Last night, we went and bought our tree.
The same place, the same guys, the same excitement and another FABULOUS tree. I think this year we may have gotten a little carried away, though. We've ended up with a six foot tree that is delightfully full, but perhaps too big for our living room. It was too big to fit into the stand we had, causing Becca and I to take turns hacking away at the trunk with my swiss army knife saw, a hammer and screwdriver, and eventually, a meat cleaver from the kitchen. Add egg nog, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen singing about sisters in White Christmas, and the intoxicating smell of fresh pine all over both of us and everything in the house and you get Christmas magic. The tree is up with lights, we'll be trimming it tonight. My Christmas cards wait for me and the cookie ingredients are burning a hole in my pantry.
Merry Christmas, people. Find your holiday magic wherever you can get it, however or whatever you celebrate.
As for me, well, here's a bit of my tradition...
(click on the snaps for bigger, better versions)
The lot, the promise of a great tree for nineteen bucks which really means sixty. The smell of pine, all over the block. Twinkle lights everywhere.
A forest in downtown Brooklyn.
The ground was actually concrete, but the billion shed needles made a foresty carpet beneath our feet. A whole different world than the high rise buildings a block across the street. We were transported. We embraced the shmultz.
The perfect tree, getting netted for transport by the tree guy. He gave us a break, it was supposed to be sixty, but he gave it to us for fifty five. We gave him sixty anyway. The lady in line behind us made a pass at our tree, she walked right up and fingered the branches while it was in the barrel. She had passed on it earlier, realized it was perfect, and asked us about fifty times if we were buying it. We took our tree and booked.
Becca, hammer and screwdriver, chipping away at the trunk after we realized it was too wide for the stand. It would take an hour, but we whittled it down. Never mind that everything in our living room was covered with flying woodchips by the time we were done and we've been tracking woodchips all over the house for the last 24 hours.
A cup of eggnog, a bowl of balls, ready for decorating.
Pictures of the tree in all its decorated glory tonight.
