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Whenever the trimming of the tree ritual is portrayed on a TV movie or commercial, we usually observe a relaxed beauty with every hair in place and ten perfect nails, a well scrubbed impeccably mannered little boy who smiles a lot and a gorgeous man with carefully selected creases around his eyes. These flawless mannequins proceed to exchange little endearing glances as they artistically affix handmade decorations to a magnificent seven-foot pine tree, freshly cut in Vermont that morning. All this is usually accompanied by the soft cheerful sounds of neighboring Christmas carolers.

Ho, Ho, HO!

A more realistic interpretation of this undertaking would be a frenzied housewife wearing ripped pink flannel pajamas with a giant safety pin holding the bottom half up. Extracting generous amounts of hair from her scalp as she searches for little silver, pointy things which secure the Christmas balls to the tree and which she will undoubtedly discover lodged in the heal of her foot.

The most difficult part of this jolly occasion is assembling the tree. We used to get a real tree, but since our dogs used it as a comfort station and think Christmas decorations are edible, we decided to go the "fake" route.

Assembling a fake tree is no easy feat. To facilitate the ordeal, each branch is tipped with a particular color, as is each respective hole. The object is matching the two. This is roughly equivalent to squeezing a 500 pound woman through a mail slot, since most of the holes are generally clogged with house spiders and ground up peppermint sticks, which we carefully poke out with a lobster fork, as my husband curses in three different languages.

Once the branches are in place (an hour or two later) we soon discover that the tree is decidedly top heavy.

"What if we turn it upside down," I offer.

No response. Just a glare. A cold, hard, frightening glare.

Next is putting up the lights, which you must untangle from angel hair, tinsel and broken glass beads, which invariably cause tiny little, painful puncture wounds and which tend to bleed all over the tree. Then figure out, why after an hour, they still don't light. Could it be: A. Your dog has eaten one of the bulbs, which is why he occasionally glows in the dark. Or B. You forgot to plug it in.

(It is an inevitability. Every year, one bulb on each 40 foot line is loose and it's always the last one.)

The most fun part of the ritual, however, is decorating the tree, striving to esthetically position each decoration to form an artistic work of art and to cover the numerous bald spots on the tree.

Securing the angel to the top of the tree, is the climactic part of the whole deal. And according to myth, is supposed to promote broad smiles and a feeling of accomplishment and well-being. Except when we notice one of the angel's wings, that was decidedly there at the beginning of the evening, is now mysteriously missing in action.

So we begin searching for the absent wing, and low and behold, there it is. A half ingested, plastic wing, poking out of one of my dogs' mouth. We spend the remainder of the evening, pulling plastic splinters out of the dogs gums, while humming, "Oh, Christmas Tree."

Have a Merry Christmas

Learn more about this author, Marie Tomas.
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