The days tick off one by one, and Christmas day bears down on me like a runaway train. I stand frozen on the tracks, knowing that I must get moving soon or be flattened. It was a day that seemed to take forever to arrive so many years ago when I was a child. Now it sneaks up on me like a final exam in a class that I skipped way too many times.
As I write this, I look across the den at an artificial Christmas tree. It is tastefully decorated by the Redhead, and yet I hate it. No, I despise it. No wait, I loathe it. It is an abomination. I think of the Scripture: "and when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the place where it aught not be, flee for the hills...."
A forester with an artificial Christmas tree. It is Monet deciding to paint a velvet Elvis. It is Anthony Bourdaine eating at McDonalds. It is washing down a canned biscuit with a glass of instant iced tea. As we sometimes say here in Alabama, "it just ain't right."
The abomination was purchased about three years ago. It was a marital compromise. Perhaps compromise is not the right word. I just wore down. Years of complaints about the mess, trouble, and expense of a real tree took a toll. Real trees dry out. They drop needles. They must be disposed of after Christmas. All valid points. I relented. Go ahead and buy the fake tree---whatever.
As I assembled the plastic and wire perfectly-shaped replacement this year, I noticed a large pile of plastic needles on the floor. I said not a word. Sometimes marital harmony is best preserved with an internal smile and simply walking away. A secret satisfaction of sorts.
I will summon my courage and enter the fray this weekend to do my Christmas shopping. I will buy useless, unnecessary gifts for loved ones who lack nothing out of some misplaced sense of obligation or guilt. I will be bumped into, pulled out in front of, cut off, and probably cursed at some point by fellow shoppers. But I will get it done for another year. Joy to the world, peace on Earth and goodwill to men.
I feel a long way from Bethlehem. And like my tree, that is an abomination.
