Christmas past

As you may know if you follow this blog, and if you do maybe it's time to stop reading and seek gainful employment, we've recently finished a major kitchen remodel. The kind that makes me wonder how we lived with the old, small, inefficient kitchen so long. The kind that makes me wonder how many lifetimes I'll need to pay for it.

In the video above you can see the new peninsula we added. Well, you'd see it if it weren't covered with the mélange of Christmas ornaments that were carefully taken off the tree, and are now waiting to be boxed up and shoved back on the top shelf of the garage where they'll live until next year, neighbor to the Easter, Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations.

It's a lot of ornaments. But it was a big tree.

As I've written about here, I have mixed feelings about packing up the holiday. I like the joy and spirit of the season, but then I can only take so much joy and spirit. It's a short ride from "Merry Christmas" to "Bah-humbug."

The good news is every time this ritual is officially over, I feel like the slate is clean once again and I can start the new year in earnest, breaking resolutions then promising to start them for real the following week.

The beauty of it is I only have to do this fifty times. Then it's Christmas all over again.

Christmas lights

They say the two happiest days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you get rid of it. I think the same can be said for Christmas trees. I know what you're thinking. Why's the Jewboy talking about buying Christmas trees?

I'll tell you why.

For starters, I love the trees. The fresh scents, the lights, the decorations. I also happen to be married to a woman who isn't a member of the tribe, so Christmas has always been the big December holiday in our house for as long as I can remember. And not to advance any stereotypes here, but I'm pretty good at math. 8 days of Hanukkah, 12 days of Christmas.

After four years of Hebrew school, a bar mitzvah and dating enough Jewish girls who made "till death do us part" sound more like a goal than a vow, I decided to opt in for a holiday a little more festive than what I'd grown up with, even if the point of the celebration wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse (although He was a member of the tribe, just saying).

Plus why would I limit myself to just blue and white lights when I can have so many different colors?

Anyway, every year we go to Brita's nursery in Seal Beach, and re-enact Goldilocks & The Three Bears as we pick out our perfect tree. "This one's too small." "This one's too large." "This one's just right."

But the secret about Christmas trees is that the exact moment it's up, decorated and ready to be enjoyed is the exact moment my 6000-year (5775 to be exact) history of worrying kicks in.

Has the tree been watered? Is it taking the water? Are the pine needles dry? Why is it dropping so many? Did we turn off the tree lights when we left? Is it going to go up in flames and take the house with it? And can the presents be saved if it does?

After a minute of standing back and admiring it, the moment has passed, my mind is spinning and I can't wait until it's out of the house (which is also how I felt about my high school girlfriend).

Every day we have to vacuum the needles that've dropped so the puppy doesn't eat them. Suddenly, what started out as a joy and spirit-lifting visage has become something I can't wait to get rid of (girlfriend joke again).

Sometime after New Year's, long after everyone else has taken their tree down, we'll finally get around to putting the hand-made, antique, mercury glass, Salzburg-bought decorations away, then kick the tree to the curb for the recycling truck to come take it.

It's sad thinking about something that brought me so much joy - although briefly - being gone so suddenly. To snap myself out of it, I just do what I did when it first got here. Stand back, look where it stood and admire the pure beauty and joy of what I see.

All the living room space I get back.