To Fake or Not to Fake

Dec 1st, 2010

My favorite childhood holiday memories involve December nights when my mom would let my brother and me sleep under our Christmas tree in our sleeping bags. My mom decorated our tree with a strict aesthetic. Nothing blinking. No garish tinsel. I loved our tree’s simple beauty with its homemade ornaments, plain white lights and popcorn garland we strung together. But falling asleep under the glow, the real tree smell was my favorite part. Our tree slumber parties fostered pure Christmas wonderment- a feeling I hope to nurture in my own daughters.

Then when I was in seventh grade my mom married my fake-tree loving stepdad.

For reasons unbeknownst to me to this day, my stepdad wouldn’t budge on the tree issue. For years, my brother and I would roll our eyes and curse when we saw the huge box marked X-mas in our living room. It meant that we would have to measure each branch against the other to determine which plastic tree level was its home until at last all the branches together vaguely resembled a lop-sided Fraser Fir. My mom compensated by spraying “real tree smell” on it which always reminded me more of a hanging car freshner than the real thing. One year my fake-tree hating aunt and I co-wrote a snarky song entitled “Fake Christmas Tree” to the tune of “Oh, Christmas Tree” that we sang to my step-dad as he arrived home from work. You can imagine his excitement. This song and the only verse we remember, “Fake Christmas Tree, Fake Christmas Tree, your plastic branches frighten me” is now a classic family story since my step-dad became my former step-dad not long after our sarcastic caroling. From then on, I promised myself that my Christmas trees as a grown-up would always be real.

Since I have been married we’ve had real trees and real tree disasters. Not only am I not a green thumb, I am more like a Grim Reaper of living green things. This can be witnessed by my greyish yard with its total absence of plants. One year I completely forgot to continue watering the tree which resulted in a carpet of pine needles on my floor. Another Christmas, my cats that fought like brothers and sisters knocked it over during their high speed chase and left glass shards in their wake. Now, I leave the tree naked from the waist down to avoid choking hazards and baby tree-tipping.

But this year for the first time ever I went so far as to entertain the idea of a fake. No unpleasant shedding. No hour spent twisting the screws into the tree trunk and re-adjusting ten times while the tree fights back with sap. No weird balding sections that ornaments can’t camouflage. I can’t help but think too that going faux might be nicer to not only me but also real trees. I tell my mom this. That I would like to imagine Douglas Firs on the side of a mountain somewhere northern where snow might actually collect on their branches instead of them dying a slow death in my sweltering Florida living room. She popped my romantic illusion by informing me that Christmas trees are now farmed. Squished tightly together. For the sole purpose of being chopped down. So we can enjoy that real tree smell. Oh.

My husband believes in real trees only. He says my practical momness is starting to freak him out; that being practical is overrated. I decide to let this one go. This December anyway. I am driving my new minivan after all.