Tree of Imperfections

The day after Thanksgiving is our decorating day.  Actually I did start decorating after our Thanksgiving meal on Thursday night.  I put up my Little Town of Bethlehem and part of my New England Village from Dept. 56.  I really need more space if I wanted to show them both off, but I'll take what I can get.

My husband usually assembles the tree.  Yes, we have a fake one.  I love trees and think that they should stay planted outside where they belong. I know you can get a live one and then plant it outside afterwards, but I'm going to be honest, that would be too much of a hassle for me.  Plus with all my allergies, a real tree just isn't in the cards.  

The tree was purchased (for me, or so he says), by my husband back in 1996.  So it's 20 years old.  It's been assembled, decorated, and taken down and stored in our (musty, damp and sometimes moldy) basement for 19 years.  We've gotten our money's worth out of it. 

Every year, when my husband brings it up, I say it's time to invest in a new tree.  It looks scrawny and scraggly.  But every year my husband assembles it and "fluffs" it.  He puts the lights on and places our "angel" (Tinkerbell) at the top.  My son and I used to decorate it together, but I have to be honest, my son does a better job that I do. So over the past couple of years I've pretty much let him do the whole thing.  This year I hardly helped at all.  (After all he is taller than me and can reach places that I cannot.)  Maybe he puts some large ornaments towards the top and ones that are too small at the bottom.  I once cared about that; I don't any more. I like what he does, even if it's not "perfect."  

When it's all done, it looks pretty darned good.  It looks especially nice at dusk when the lights go on and there are no other lights on in the room.  Magically that scrawny and scraggly (and somewhat musty smelling) tree, turns into something beautiful.  Is it the tree?  Is it the lights?  Is it the ornaments?  No.  It is the love that goes into it.

It is a tree of many imperfections.  And when we take it down after the holiday (which must be done by Epiphany), I'll probably say to myself that we should invest in a new tree.  Most likely when the day after Thanksgiving arrives in 2017, my husband will be digging out this same tree. 

Its many imperfections don't matter.  It is our tree. It may sag and drop more needles.  It may be old and a little musty. Like our family it has its imperfections.  But it is our tree and like every member of our family it is loved.  And when a something or someone is loved, imperfections really don't matter.