I went out with my dad and cut down trees this morning. He and I do this every year, and have since I was about four. Even the years I wasn't living in Maryland he waited 'til I got home for Christmas so I could go get the tree.
It's funny, because we are not a touchy-feely-huggy family at all, but with unspoken traditions like this we are obviously very sentimental.
My favorite part of the tree tradition is getting up to the tree farm and having Dad say "It sure doesn't seem like it's been a year since we did this." (He also says that every year when we get to the beach.)
I got a tree this year. I haven't put a tree up for a long time...the last one was a year or two before my husband and I separated, and I remember decorating that one by myself while I drank Jack Daniels and listened to John Hiatt. It was not exactly a Norman Rockwell holiday that year.
But this year Victor and I will be home Christmas morning and several days around Christmas, and we've acquired some ornaments as gifts since we've been together, and I dunno, it just felt like it was time again.
Tomorrow when it's snowing (or sleeting or freezing rain or whatever nastiness Mother Nature is throwing at us) we'll put on a pot of soup and decorate the tree. I don't expect Norman Rockwell...we're a bit too offbeat for that, I think...but I'm looking forward to Christmas a lot this year.
Posted by Nic at December 13, 2003 04:46 PM | TrackBack