"Hey, I have an idea... maybe we could put up the tree?"
Oh God. The tree.
We were having a lovely, lazy Sunday afternoon and had just opened a nice bottle of cheap wine. And now this. A shiver went down my spine. The tree. Although it had been phrased as a suggestion, it was clear this was a done deal.... the Christmas Tree was going up.
I had a sudden pang of guilt. Here I had been mocking the neighbors for jumping the gun on Christmas decorations, and now we were going to do the same. Pot. Kettle. Black. We always decorate, but always after Thanksgiving. There was a certain logic to it all - we're going to be away for Thanksgiving, and with the boyfriend's schedule it could be weeks before we could do anything, and then by then half the season would be gone. But still.
Christmas is my partner's favorite holiday, which is only worth noting because he was raised Jewish. As long as we've been together we've always pulled out all the stops. But unlike our new neighbors, we always do it tastefully, sophisticated and chic. (There was one notable exception - the year I overruled my partner and decided the "theme color" for that year would be orange. Don't ask me why. We spent the better part of the Saturday after Thanksgiving scouring Greater LA for every available orange Christmas light, and then another couple of hours stringing them all up. As the sun set it was time to check out our handiwork, and with a flip of the switch, the house... went SUPERNOVA. The entire neighborhood looked as if it was under a heat lamp, or on fire. Once your eyes adjusted it wasn't as bad - the house merely looked like a Taco Bell. Within 10 minutes the lights were off, and the next day they came down. And I've been relieved of all decorating decisions since.) At any rate, we always do a stylish job. Nothing inflatable.
Which brings us to the Christmas tree.
It's aluminum.
Our house in LA was a Mid Century Modern, built in the 50's by a name architect. The living room was all glass, and the tree was always the focal point of the decorations. For several years we bought a fresh tree and did it up all Martha Stewart-ish. But one year my partner decided we should really decorate "of the era". Vintage. Think Jet Set, Rat Pack. And that could only mean one thing.... an aluminum tree. Unfortunately, they no longer make them, at least nothing of quality. Which left only one choice: Ebay.
My partner is a master Ebay-er. Over the years I've watched him buy and sell countless items, swooping in like a Ninja in the final three seconds to snatch a prize away from some poor schmuck who'd been bidding for a week. And sure enough, within a day, he found our tree - a genuine 1968 Alcoa Aluminum Tree! And it revolved! And even had separate spotlights with color wheels! Only used once!
And now the bad news.... he'd bid $400. $400? For a fucking Christmas Tree? Was he out of his mind? Evidently, not just yet, because someone started bidding against him and it started creeping up in $10 increments. This was madness. It had to stop. I told him in no uncertain terms that if it hit $500, we were out.
But here's the thing... there's CRAZY, and then there's EBAY CRAZY. I'm not sure what happened, it's still kind of a blur. The bids quickly blew past $500. Somewhere around $750 even my boyfriend started to get cold feet. But I was possessed. It was our tree, and I didn't care if I had to sell a kidney to pay for it.
Ultimately we prevailed. For only $1000.
The tree arrived as advertised - pristine condition, only used once. We knew this because it was delicately packed in the December 26th, 1968 edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph. Who knows what family psychodrama played out that had the tree packed up so quickly, never to be seen again. It was ours now.
I'm not sure exactly what we were expecting. I guess we somehow thought it would just open up like an umbrella. But spread out before us were 300 individually wrapped and color coded tree branches of the best American aluminum 1968 had to offer. It took hours to assemble, and I quickly grew bored and started reading the old newspaper ("Chugwater man saved from drowning... record albums for $1.26!... women's dresses starting at $4.00!...) Feelings were hurt, nerves were frayed and by the time the thing was assembled there wasn't much Christmas cheer left in the room. But it did look AMAZING.
So here we were, ready to do it all over again. I wondered if we'd be speaking to each other by the time it went up, but to my immense relief our prior experience paid off and it went up fairly quickly.
I have extremely mixed emotions about the tree. It actually makes me really sad to look at it, because it so reminds me of our old house and the life that once went with it.
On the other hand, it cost a fucking thousand dollars and we're damn well going to get our money's worth out of it.
