Byron de Arakal -- Between the Lines

There was, until just recently, a movement in my household. A

sacrilege, really. The flicker of an idea to jettison one of the most

endearing and enchanting traditions of Christmas.

“It can’t be,” I muttered to myself in the wee hours of recent

mornings. “O Tannenbaum, where art thou?”

My wife, the source of this blasphemy, said she knew.

“There’s a nice one on sale at Target. An eight-footer,” she slyly

suggested.

“Target?” I wondered aloud. “Those are Charlie Brown trees. Drop more

needles in five minutes than an addict in an exchange program. I’ll not

be having a discount retail tree in my home.”

“No, no,” she countered. “These are really nice trees over in

housewares.”

“That’s an odd place for ‘em,” I thought. “They’ll be tinder in no

time.” And the thought had barely jumped the synapse when the horror

crashed over me like an avalanche.

“You mean a fake tree?”

“I want a nice tree,” she cooed.

“So do I,” I insisted, still reeling from the woman’s suggestion. “A

nice live tree.”

“Trees are so expensive now,” she reminded me. “And I don’t want a

tree like the one you picked out last year.”

It was a cheap shot. Last year was an anomaly, a poor choice (under

seven feet with a gaping hole on one side and already a tad crunchy at

the top) made in haste. I was, after all, surrounded by dolts

deliberating over one tree and then another and another as if they were

Lamborghinis.

“Ma’am,” I remember thinking, “it’s a tree, not an insurance policy.

It’ll be dead inside of three weeks. Pick one!” But since the ninnies

weren’t of a mind to move along, I told my son to grab “that one” and

away we went. My wife remembers these things.

She then fired off a lame salvo aimed to reassure.

“The artificial trees. . . . “

I interrupted. “The fake trees, you mean,” reminding her they come in

a box.”

“They don’t look fake. They look really real.”

This was getting serious. The planet’s already been overrun with

fakery and faux and knockoffs. And so to conceive that one might hunt for

the blessed Tannenbaum amid the bread makers and toilet brushes, beneath

the sterile shine of fluorescent bulbs, is to start down a dark and

slippery slope.

Were I to give in, I could imagine an era void of Christmas tree lots.

A time when the sawdust and the intoxicating fragrances are memories not

realities. An age when Courier & Ives Christmas cards depict families

prowling the aisles of the local five and dime for that perfect

manufactured tree.

She bored in, “I saw one in the paper the other day with the lights

already installed.”

“First of all,” I huffed, “you don’t install lights. You string them.

And that’s something I like doing.”

“Are you sure?” she asked knowingly. “I’ve seen what comes over you

when a strand burns out after we’ve finished decorating the tree.”

“Yes, well, it’s a good excuse to have another brandy.”

“When have you ever needed a reason to have another brandy?”

“Honey, fake trees don’t have a fragrance,” I reminded her. “And

that’s half the beauty of a Christmas tree -- when your nose is filled

with that wonderful smell it triggers so many memories of Christmas.”

“This isn’t about you getting older, is it?” she asked.

I knew this was coming. And I feared it since it’s a query armed with

some kernel of truth I dared not admit. I mean, the only fake trees I’ve

seen are in the homes of folks who’ve planted a flag on the summit of

life’s bell curve. My folks have one. My wife’s parents do too (I think

they bought it during the Eisenhower Administration). And my brother (my

senior by a few years) told me he broke down and bought one this year.

Things do seem to annoy him more easily than they used to.

So I mused. If I capitulate to the fake tree movement, will I start

falling asleep while sitting up? Will coarse and odd-shaped hair begin

sprouting from my ears? Will I find myself wearing white socks and black

slippers? Then, square in the middle of this tree tattle and

self-absorbed hand wringing, my precious little daughter with huge and

pleading eyes entered the fray.

“I want a real Christmas tree,” she trilled in a Cindy Lou Who voice.

And with that the puzzled mug of the Grinch -- upon stumbling over the

spirit of the Christmas season after picking Whoville clean -- pasted

itself on our faces. The season is for her.

O Tannenbaum, where art thou? At least for this year, it’s not at

Target. It’s out there somewhere, alive and well, in the chilled night

air.

* Byron de Arakal is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays. Readers may reach him with

news tips and comments via e-mail at o7 [email protected] .