In beauty green will always grow

For the early years of my childhood, we spent the weeks around Christmas in Georgia with family, and only had an artificial table-top Christmas tree. In my teenage days, we raised ourselves to a full-size artificial tree, the decoration of which began with the maddening process of fitting color-coded branch ends into a metal base. The tree was old, and the paint was faded, worn away altogether in some places. My obsession with Christmas meant that I was always the one to tackle the nightmare, with the assistance of whatever brother could be bribed or threatened into participation.

I knew that real G0d-made trees were superior, with the passion you only show towards things which you longed for and never got as a child (this category in my therapist's notebook also includes "American Girl doll," "trip to Disneyworld," and "Barbie Dream Jeep, the one you can actually sit in and drive around"). When I grew up and had apartments of my own, heart warred with wallet at Christmastime. In shameful desperation, one broke bookstore year, I purchased a midsize artificial tree at Wal-mart for $12.

Now I live in New York, where there's a Christmas tree stand on every corner, because no one could possibly waste their expensive closet space on storing a Christmas tree for eleven months. My first Christmas here, my home was a third of a tiny studio apartment, and we gloried in our table-top Christmas tree with its string of white lights and handful of brand-new ornaments. The second year, I was prepping to move on New Years' Day. There was no Christmas tree.

Now I live in a life-size apartment, and one of my roommates is a good Jewish boy whose first Christmas tree experience came just five years ago. He has embraced the view that chosen people choose Christmas trees, and on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we unpacked our respective ornament collections.



Although the bulk of my ornament portfolio is still in my brother's closet in Detroit, I've acquired a decent hoard over the past two years. I'm a Christmas professional. It's what I do.

We laid everything out in readiness, checked the strings of lights, and rearranged the living room furniture.

And then we went out to get the tree.