Unlikely Christmas Spirit

Have you ever played the "a year ago, would you ever have guessed..." game with yourself?  I find myself doing that a lot lately, only because the first 18 years of my life were spent in not always good, but ultimately predictable circumstances.  For instance, at any given time, I would more likely than not live in a run down apartment under the semi-purview of some lady that my dad was dating.   The specifics weren't always the same, but they were similar enough to wear on me.

The last three years are a vastly different story.  Nothing of any consequence has been the least bit predictable ever since I made the decision to move to North Texas.  So, yesterday's "would you ever have guessed" question was this:

Would you ever have guessed that you would have your own Christmas tree, purchased from a tree farm that serves free apple cider and offers hay rides, and would share it with three others, two of which don't even live with you? 


Answer: No, I wouldn't have.

I've never really been a Christmas person.  It's not that I dislike the holiday the way I do Thanksgiving (tons of baggage there...maybe another time..), it's just that it's never been one of massive fanfare for me.  But for some reason, this year I feel a little more Christmas spirit seeping through.  This year, for reasons I can't even account for, I wanted a Christmas tree.

I've never had one of my own, and I hadn't planned on having one.  But one day last week, I woke up and realized that it's what I wanted.  The people around me all had differing reactions to this news.

Shari, roommate: "(giggles) That's funny, girl.  Should we decorate it with condoms and lube-packs?"

Loni, next-door neighbor/duplex-mate: "Really?  I didn't expect you to want that.  (then smiles)  I like them, though.  Sounds fun."

Juan, boyfriend: "You mean you weren't going to get one, anyway?"

I was going to have my own tree, but the more we all talked about it, the more sense it made for it to be a tree for all four of us.  Juan's cousin didn't want to put a tree in their apartment, Loni's family had never made Christmas a priority, therefore she'd never had a tree before, and Shari's mom had given her some ornaments from her childhood which, since leaving home, had never left the box that they were stored in.

So, on a cool, grey Saturday morning, the four of us set out in a friend's borrowed van to find our tree.  An hour later, we arrived at a tree farm roughly a half hour from the nearest gas station, ATM, or reliable cell phone signal.  We sat on a flat trailer lined with hay bails, being pulled by a tractor to the tree field.  There were probably an equal number of fresh stumps as trees; somehow, on December 3, we were far from the early birds in the Christmas tree hunt.  Unfortunately, the ones that were left showed definite signs of distress; the drought has not been kind to the tree farming business.

After rigorous debate, we selected a tree that stood maybe a foot taller than me, with bare patches and a skinny, crooked trunk, but tons and tons of character.  There were fuller, straighter, greener trees to be sure, but this one called out to me, much like the hapless runt in the puppy litter.  I'd found my tree.

About fifteen seconds later, Juan had sawn it off at the stump and we were dragging our forlorn evergreen back toward the hay-ride trailer stop, awaiting our ride back to the farmhouse.  I couldn't help but think how much fun my dog would have had if I'd thought to bring her.

Of course, the fun didn't stop there.  The first tree stand that we bought didn't work due to narrow and extremely twisted trunk.  Loni says our tree has scoliosis; I agree with her diagnosis.  We sent Juan back out to Home Depot for tree stand #2, and an hour later, plus some mechanical retrofitting, our tree finally stood proudly in my living room: relatively stable, if not straight.

We put on the lights and the star last night, and over the next few days, we'll get the ornaments up.  Loni has a few trinkets that she is attaching hooks to, and I secretly went out and bought some ornaments when I bought the lights- you gotta start somewhere with these traditions.  I don't think Juan has any ornaments, nor the desire to buy any, but it's no less his tree, given his time spent here and all the work he put into getting it upright.

I don't know where my new Christmas spirit comes from.  Maybe it's has to do with finding the closest thing to family in the close friends I've made over the last year or two.  Maybe it's having a kid on the way, and subconsciously trying to establish family traditions.  Maybe, given my dislike of Thanksgiving, this is the holiday that I choose to be thankful for all the good things in my life.

I do have a lot to be thankful for.