My son insisted that he and his dad should get the tree together this year as it has been his dad and sister managing tree operations for the past several years that he has been in college. And last year, when both kids were away at school, my daughter called in the midst of finals week to instruct her dad not to get and decorate the tree till she came home, and he was obedient and waited.
This year, the men went alone and brought in said majestic specimen. I said to my son, "So now you're going to decorate it?" to which he replied quizzically no, he was leaving that for his sister since she particularly enjoyed it. So why did they get the tree two weeks ahead of her coming home, I wanted to know and he merely shrugged. His part was done. And so my dear husband has begun the decorations all by his lonesome, enjoying it as a multistep process that he is recording nightly on Instagram for our girl. Last night he strung the lights. Tonight, the first of the baubles. And so on.
My son, meanwhile, will do his first EMT overnight rotation at a hospital ER tonight and he's pretty stoked. So tree decorating is not his thing (nor is it mine). He has other gifts.
Hey! That's the way to do it!
ReplyDeleteWe have been similarly instructed by the ex-Queenager not to touch the tree till she gets home on Saturday (if she makes it - snow and cancellations.) The house is usually decked out by now but the combination of my business and her "order" has it as bare as the summer.
ReplyDeleteI love it. Is that your boy pulling that tree in the pic?
ReplyDeleteKimberly, no that's his dad pulling the tree. My son was holding up the e other end but paused to take this picture.
DeleteI love this post, including that perfect photo. It's so much better to relax and let the process happen as it should and will rather than fight for something ideal and perfect. I think it was our first year, too, that the process is taking days. While I felt my hackles rise a bit at first, they've settled -- tomorrow, Oliver will hopefully put the train around the tree with his father and it'll be complete.
ReplyDeleteOh, and this brought back wonderful memories of NYC tree-shopping: the dragging of the tree down the street and up all the stairs.
I miss the smell of a real tree. Maybe next year. I like your son's comment "that his job was done."
ReplyDeleteThe trimming of my parents tree was an important tradition to me as well, throughout college and up until I had my own children, and needed to do my own tree. Now, as I decorate the tree with my daughters, I play the same music that my parents played for me.
ReplyDelete