Tree

Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say,
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day,
That's the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway,

"Um, yeah. I really WISH I were in Hawaii right now..."

Here we know that Christmas will be green and bright,
The sun to shine by day and all the stars at night,
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way
To say "Merry Christmas to you."

"My tree is up, but green and bright it ain't. I wanted to shove this tree up my husband's butt at one point today."

Oh man, what a day. I am beginning to think that a REAL tree would be easier to manage than this 7 foot tall artificial monstrosity I have jammed in my front window.

Firstly, my husband insists the only place we have to store this thing is the crawl space under the house. Bless his heart, he wiggles under there year after year to retrieve the huge box he jams the tree parts into. He yanks the parts out, works his way through the mine field we call basement, up a half-flight of steps and he hucks the assorted, mangled tree parts in my general direction. His mood as he does this? Warm with Christmas Spirit? Hell, no. He is muttering curses no self-respecting sailor would utter and complaining every minute about how the whole process of tree retrieval SUCKS.

Secondly, after having assorted simulated tree parts hucked at me, I now have to sort the pile of mangled limbs into piles, by size. They look like they have been attacked by wolverines. These branches used to be color coded. Unfortunately, years of cramming into too small a storage box and jammed into a crawl space seems to have flaked off many of the color code indicators. Joy!

Thirdly, they made the needles on this pseudo-evergreen TOO dang real. I have oodles of little cuts and abrasions on my fingers, wrists, arms and legs from trying to bend the twisted mess back into a sort of tree shape.

Fourthly, once I finally assemble the beast, I am again reminded that this tree is WAY to big for my tiny living room. *sigh* So I rearrange the furniture and tree to try and make enough room to walk past without cutting your legs or tripping into the fireplace. Egad that thing is HEAVY.

Fifthly, I drag out the tangled mess that is the lights for the tree. Flopping on the floor, I try and find an end to the twisted mess on my lap. Two sets of colored lights are non-functional. One set only half lights. The remaining strand of annoying blinking colored lights will be banished to a bush or tree OUTSIDE. Thankfully, I have two working strings of pretty white lights for the tree. Now if I can keep Tyler away long enough to untangle and install them... He is into everything and getting on my already frayed nerves. Poor kid only wants to help.

Lastly, I trip and struggle around the tree and fling the lights around it's massive girth. Just enough lights. Done. Now I can sit and enjoy the beauty of this illuminated vision, right? No. All I can think about is grabbing three Tylenol and a big glass of water for my aching back and cramping gut. (Did I fail to mention my Aunt Flo came to call yesterday?) Ugh.

At some point during this fiasco, my husband has turned on some Christmas music. When it finally registers, I find myself adding commentary to the strains of "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year". "Oh yeah? Well not in this house, bub."

Anyone want an abused, but still in good shape, artificial Christmas tree? It will be at our curb probably some time in March. That's about how long it will take me to work up the gumption to remove all the decorations, un-rig the lights and take that monster apart. I'll tell my husband to wait in the front yard so I can huck it at him and he can relocate it to roadside. No more crawlspace, honey. I'm done. Next year we'll just chop down the spruce at the corner of the house.