THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT TREE

While quest might not be the correct word here, it somehow seems like a quest. It's not like I drive for 2 hours into the country and then hike into some uptomykneedeep in snow forest searching until dusk for that perfectly shaped tree that will perfectly adorn my living room for a fleeting few days in December. Nope, it's not that at all. Basically, I send my husband into the crawl space we call a basement and get him to pass the treeinabox up through the trap door. From there it is quickly assembly by merely inserting the branches into their correct slots. How hard can this be? They are all color coded! The tree itself is perfectly shaped....you can bend a branch here or there if you like for added effect and voila! The tree! Ok, so that (well, maybe not according to the husband) is the easy part. Now to embark on the decorating. Herein lies the "quest" for the perfect tree! The last couple of years I have found myself alone in the house during this time. It's only now dawning on me that there might be a reason for this other than just circumstances and timing. I'm beginning to think people might not want to join in this yearly celebration with me! Hmmm....
So this year the decorating begins on a Saturday morning around 9. I am surrounded with my carefully chosen decorations, beautiful deep red apples with gold leaves, golden pears with reddish hues, stunning beaded pomegranates and cream & caramel balls that have a wonderful sheen to them, golden ribbon for trim and 450 clear mini lights. I grab the breakfast of grannies (a cup of tea for those of you who aren't grannies yet) and I am ready. I painstakingly start with the lights. Carefully weaving them in and out of the branches from the trunk to the tips being careful to evenly space them I find myself lost in my thoughts and totally enjoying the task at hand and the quietness that surrounds me. It seems like no time and I am on to my next string of 100 lights, and then the next. As I pick up the 3rd string I start to get a little concerned that I am now only about a third of the way around on the second layer of branches and I am already at almost half of my quota! I call my husband at work and express my concern to him that I have now been at this project for 3 hours and I'm sure that I will not have enough lights. He assures me that it will be fine (such a peacemaker!) and encourages me to carry on. Within another hour, I realize that his assurances were far from correct as I have now used up my 450 lights and I am just starting the third row of branches. Another call to the husband, "Please come home for lunch now and stop at the store and pick me up some more lights ...PLEASE." He soon arrives with 250 more lights, eats some lunch and leaves me once more to my own devices assuring me that the tree looks beautiful and I'm doing a marvelous job. Two more hours on the job and I realize that the left over string of 50 lights won't come close to covering the rest of the tree that I have left but I must stop as we're expecting friends over for coffee at 3 and it's almost that time. When they leave at 5:30 husband (who came home at 3) leaves with them for another sojourn to the store for more lights. 300 more lights and who even knows how many more hours, I emerge from the living room only out of necessity. We quickly ready ourselves for an appearance at a Christmas party, staying only long enough to be sure that people noticed we were there and then home again to the TREE. I can't stand the thought of decorating again tomorrow so weary but determined, I return to the living room to adorn the tree with the beautiful shiny balls. Trying to place the balls in some kind of semetry soon becomes somewhat frustrating and I am continually switching balls from one place to another making sure that the colors are evenly spaced and the right ones are beside the right ones. Ah, finally all that is left is the ribbon! That I can leave until the morningas it's now 11:00 - 13 hours after I began. I stand back to admire my masterpiece.....oh my goodness.....the brightness of 950 lights drowns out the beautiful, carefully placed balls. You can barely see them and the ones you can see are like a shadow within the light. Those beautiful hues of red and gold and caramel dim in the glow of the lights. Oh well, surely it can be used as a beacon to weary travellers who might lose their way this Christmas season!

View from my deck: Gray sky, little sun, a skif of snow around the patio chairs and the brightest star I've ever seen shining in the east!