We lived on a sort-of farm in (then) rural Fairfax County from when I was four years old until we moved to McLean, VA in sixth grade. The house included a room with a 10-foot ceiling, unusual in the 60's, and a wall facing east that was completely windows; the room was known as 'the sun room.'
At Christmas, my dad would slog out in the woods and capture a tree to decorate. Even with the high ceiling, he'd usually have to cut a couple of feet off the top or the bottom to make it fit.
A few days before Christmas one year, George the Dog and I were lying on the sofa in the sun room admiring the decorated tree when I noticed that it was beginning to lean forward, and to my horror it crashed onto the hardwood floor, shattering any number of ornaments. George and I got blamed, but I will promise to the end that I didn't do it. George, despite intense interrogation also never admitted to the crime.
My mom, always one to change the rules in the middle of the game, decided that we could all open one present on Christmas Eve, so after the usual church thing that night we'd hustle home and do so.
Paula and I married in August 1977, and I continued the tradition of questionable DIY-harvested Christmas trees, of which Charles Brown would be proud.
Paula, as her expression may indicate, was not impressed and in an after-Christmas sale at Zayre (yes, it was that long ago) picked up a fake tree, and we've had one ever since. Her family in Oregon, however, kept on culling sad ones out of the forest. And yes, I used to have hair. And a 70's mustache, etc. Lay off, OK? It was cool back then. I promise.
She had been wise picking up a fantastic-plastic tree - things got pretty lean during the years of med school and residency and as kids began to pile up.
These were the well-documented Bad Years of Christmas Light Strings (see Wikipedia article - "Psychiatric Admission Increase Thought Secondary to Christmas Lights") during which frustrated fathers would finally give up after hours of trying to figure out which bulb was bad, say naughty words, ball up the whole mess, jam it in the trash and go to K-Mart to buy a new string of lights.
Luckily, heaven-sent inspiration led to the invention of LED lighting and the world emerged from that terrible era. And the kids kept coming.
And coming.
And then they grew up and started going.
And before we knew it, there weren't as many hands to help decorate the tree.
And then there were years spent far from home, where Christmas was modest, and there was no time or place for a tree,
though Paula would find one when she could, like this one in Bogota.
Christmas stores wold pop up in December in Peru, with Chinese-made things complete with Spanish "Feliz Navidad" on the package.
So for several years, we had our Golden Tree, Economic Model.
However, celebrating Christmas with the missionaries helped both them and us to have joy at that time of year.
When the Mission Home in Huancayo, Peru was finished, Paula tracked down a nice tree (the nicest one they had!) and the missionaries helped us decorate.
And it helped that there were little kids in the neighborhood.
When we got home, it was time to begin spending time with our grandkids at their place at Christmas, with their tree.
But Paula insisted we put up ours also, and sometimes we were lucky enough to have some of them around to help decorate it.
This year we put up the tree by ourselves; everyone else is it at a distance now with their own kids and their own trees.
Many of the ornaments brought back sweet memories. There were no visitors, but it was beautiful by itself. The house was still, and we held hands and talked quietly for a little while.
Dave & Paula
