Brightest Tree Ever
Clark Griswald has nothing on my Christmas tree. Hands down.

First of all, I am not in the Christmas spirit. I am trying to be, but I'm not. I haven't been in the Christmas spirit for the past four Christmases, and this year I am trying to be better about it. So far, not much luck on that. But I'm really, really trying.

My mom, Mamaw, and I did shop and purchase a few decorations for my new house this year. They are simple and tasteful, as I am not a fan of Christmas decorations in general. Something about green and red together has just never been appealing to me.

My motivation for being festive this year is that I am hosting my church's Christmas party at my house on Saturday. I figured if it's a Christmas party and other people are in the Christmas spirit, I might as well decorate and make it Christmas-y on their behalf. No need to inflict my bah-humbug attitude on everyone else's fun Christmas.

Don't get me wrong. I am very excited to have the party at my house this year. I'm very excited to have a few dozen of my favorite people crammed into my tiny house (ie: pretty much everyone I know all in one place). The Christmas party is always a fun time. But, try as I might, I'm still just not in the Christmas mood. It's a sucky time of year for me.

I've never hosted a big party before. I've never had the space, or enough people interested in being in my space. Now that I do, I'm a little freaked out, since I am technically at heart, a hermit through and through. I may have to go into hiding for awhile after the party to recover. But I am totally game for the adventure. It will be a major milestone for me. People keep telling me I'm an adult now that I own a house, so I might as well act like one sometimes. Grown ups apparently have nice parties.

So the past few evenings have consisted of decorating the house for Christmas. I carefully placed my Christmas-y things, setting the tone for eclectic Christmas cheer. I even bought a festive doormat. It's almost tacky, but not quite.

The big focus of the decorations is, of course, my tree. It's a tree I inherited from my parents several years ago when they graduated to a bigger fake tree. I put it up once a couple of years ago, and it was such an ordeal that I haven't had the energy to do it again since then. This year, however, I was ready for it. And I wanted to give the gift of my tree for the viewing pleasure of the people attending the party at my house.

The tree was packaged up with all of the lights my dad had purchased to go on the tree. Actually, he gave me the tree in the box not realizing he had stashed all of his lights in with the tree. The last time I put the tree up, I got a frantic call from him asking me if I had his ten strings of lights. I assumed he'd meant to include the lights in the box with the tree. But apparently he'd intended to keep that collection of lights for himself. Since my parents now lived several states away where he couldn't easily get the lights back from me, he wished me a Merry Christmas and enjoyment of his set of tree lights, then hung up the phone to head to Wal-Mart to buy himself some new lights for his new tree.

Now, my dad loves a well-lighted Christmas tree. In the year 2001, it was his goal to get 2001 lights on the bigger tree he'd purchased after bestowing the smaller tree to me. After several trips to the store to purchase more and more lights, he succeeded. It lit up the entire neighborhood. From inside the house.

Many a year I have sat and watched (staying out of his way, of course) as my dad strings out all of the lights and begins the major chore of lighting the tree. He has a special technique, which I am proud to say I've inherited in my tree lighting skills. He hates the process (as do I) but he loves the finished product (as do I). He weaves the strings of lights in and out of the branches, rather than just wrapping them haphazardly around the tree, so that they look embedded within the tree to create a solid array of lights, rather than a strand of wrapped around lights like a candy cane. It's a tedious and time consuming process. But the end result is a massive amount of lights creatively placed within the tree.

I did not realize what a major task this is until I did it myself for the first time with my inherited tree a couple of years ago. It took forever. There was cursing. It wasn't pretty. Until I was finished. Then I saw what I had created, and it was beautiful.

It also lit up my entire apartment complex. From inside my apartment.

Last night I again completed the lighting of the tree. It took an entire evening earlier this week to build the tree, limb by limb, branch by branch, placing and twisting each part of the tree to make it look real. It even leans a little like a real tree might. But once I had it standing tall and filled in with the fake branches, it was time for the lighting adventure. Last night was the night.

I already knew what was in store, having done it once before. It's a frustrating activity. But I'm proud to say that it only took about three hours this time. It's not a big tree, maybe seven feet tall, but my goal was to put at least eight of the ten strings of my Dad's lights on the tree. I want to make him proud, carrying on the family tree lighting tradition. I'd done it before. I could do it again.

And, it is done. It's a work of art. It is beautiful.

And it lights up my whole neighborhood. From inside my house.

C.T.