Chez Shaffner

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Downtown Christmases

Almost every time I state this piece of Shaffner trivia, someone looks at me askew: For all but two or three Decembers, my family had an artificial tree for Christmas.

“But didn’t you live in Maine?” people ask, incredulous. “Couldn’t you have cut the tree from your back yard?”

Truth is, I loved that steel behemoth. Exposed metal at the end of each prickly bough was color coded to indicate where on the central wooden post it should go. We dumped three Hefty bags of boughs onto the carpet and began our annual family project as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes were dried and put away. It took a solid forty minutes to assemble that tree, another thirty to loop the twinkle lights and garlands back and forth across it, twenty more to place two ornaments on each and every prickly bough, and five ecstatic minutes for my sister and me to cast tinsel here and there and everywhere. Ray Conniff’s orchestra twirled carols on Mom’s rickety record player as we turned down the living room lights and smiled at the sparkle.

When the tree succumbed to rust, we hacked down a live spruce from the farm two miles up the road. We had real trees for several years, but it was never the same as that old artificial gem. Mom and Dad have a new fake tree now, but it’s not as nice as the one we had growing up… No fake tree can compare to my idealized memory of that old steel tree.

The flower shop next to my favorite bookstore had a bunch of real trees propped against the bricks today. I didn’t remember them having trees in prior years, and the survey the proprietor cast my way as we completed our transaction (do you live in the neighborhood? you do? how about these heights? should I have gotten some seven footers? eight footers?), confirmed my recollection. Upon seeing those trees this morning, the Christmas spirit seized hold of me. Ours is not a huge apartment, and there is no natural nook to hold a full-sized tree. To make matters worse, I tend to think big: a perfect tree for me touches the ceiling. But for once I thought with a level, practical mind: if I shoved my desk into the corner, shifted the couch forward two feet, one of those smaller trees might fit without forcing us to dine in the front closet.

I shelled out the dough and threw that tree over my shoulder. Down Newbury Street, up Mass Ave, along Commonwealth, wielding a five-foot Douglas fir. I almost lifted a woman’s purse from her shoulder with the tip-top of my tree. She should have known better than sneak past a tree-bearing man on his blind side, if you ask me!

Sure enough, it fit, and we hopped in the car to procure the fixings. Four hundred twinkle lights, two strands of silver garland, twenty cheap shiny ornaments later, we’re ready for Christmas in the Back Bay.

(Now if only I can get started on the pesky matter of shopping…)

Labels: Miscellany