Every year it's the same.
"Let's get the tree out and decorate it!!!"
Silence.
Crickets chirp.
A baby cries.
Mark stares at me.
"Oh come on honey! Please!"
Fast forward to three days later.
"Honey, can you get the tree down. Seriously."
Silence.
"I am SO NOT KIDDING."
*deep sigh*
"Why are you such a SCROOGE??!!"
He simply glowers at me.
Later that evening, I sneak up into the attic, hell bent on bringing the damn tree down myself. Oh yeah, I woulda done this 3 days ago by myself but I am banned from setting foot in the attic. The why is not important. Suffice it to say I put my lower region through our ceiling once.
I hear him yelling for me from downstairs, but I ignore it and maniacally try to reach the tree box that is buried in the farthest reaches of the attic. Finally I go downstairs.
"Where were you?" he yells, as I dig insulation outta my feet.
"In the attic. Gettin the tree!"
"Oh for gods sake!It's too early to get the damn tree out. It's not even December yet. Why do we need it? It's just another thing that the kids can destroy."
"GET.THE.TREE."
"NO. You can't make me. I won't do it."
I raise my eyebrow.
Thirty minutes later, the tree is downstairs. The kids are in their red pj's, their little faces scrubbed clean. I consider putting christmas music, but I know Mark's head would explode like a rotten tomato, so I hum quietly to myself.
Lily runs in circles around me. Sam yanks on the tree repeatedly and then melts down when I yell at him to stop.
I soldier on through it all, twining ribbon through the synthetic branches, fixing the bow just right. Lily yells from the vicinity of my feet "Can we decorate it noooooooooow???".
"Okay okay."
She begins randomly chucking ornaments into the tree. Sam, seeing this, growls like the tasmanian devil and makes a beeline for the shiny things. He of course bumps his head in the process and begins wailing like a soprano in a christmas choir.
I look at Mark.
He looks at me from his perch on the couch. He is smug. Very smug.
"Not quite how ya pictured it huh?" he asks, smirking.
I shoot him the bird. And I don't mean a turtle dove.
I put the kids to bed, while humming a sweet christmas hymn. Or while muttering about the virtues of becoming a nun or a lesbian. No matter.
And in the end, it is me decorating the tree. Alone. Carting the ornaments downstairs. Alone. No christmas music. No cocoa. No sweet family exclaiming over all of the precious treasured ornaments that emerge from the box. Just a mom in her mismatched pj's and messy hair listening to her husbands burps and the football game on the tv. Muttering to herself and possibly drinking the cooking sherry.
So happy holidays, damnitt. The tree is done.
