Weeks ago, I kicked over the Christmas tree. Not only did I kick it over, but I also continued to kick it repeatedly while lying on the ground. It was like a scene from Office Space. The scene where Peter and his colleagues kick junk out of the office printer. If someone had handed me a baseball bat, I would have definitely used it.
How could this Christmas tree have so severely offended me? Well, the trunk was too narrow for our Christmas tree stand. Was this particular tree meant to make my life more difficult? I couldn't tell you. However, the shine of that thin trunk definitely felt personal.
As you know, this particular tree was supposed to make my life easier. It was specially purchased to minimize complications. Last year - well, really the past 12 years, especially this past year - my life has become horrifically complicated, and I was looking for ways to simplify things.
I appreciate holiday decorations but I have never enjoyed the legwork involved in the actual decorating part. And this particular year, everything I used to find moderately boring became incredibly overwhelming. I bravely packed the family into the car against the December winds, argued over which tree to choose, ultimately decided one child was gloating and another was sulking, and felt paralyzed at the prospect of tying the tree to the roof. Our car (or more accurately, pretending to be helpful while the graceful young man ties the tree to our car's roof), and after last year (and the year before that and the year before that) when the tree lot only took cash, I had to run down the street to the nearest ATM to pay ridiculous ATM fees, so I could pay a ridiculous $75 for a tree and then shoot more cash to tilt the graceful young man who took the horrible tree off our roof.
My children had previously expressed very strong opinions regarding the selection of the Christmas tree, but this year they were too cool to care, and my husband and I said we could go without them...