Our Old House

Growing up, I loved having a real tree for the holidays.  In the last few years, my parents have started putting up a fake one.  It is beautiful and always perfect, but it is not a real tree.  You don’t have to turn it to hide the kinda bare side.  You don’t have to tie it to the radiator to ensure that it stands up straight.  You also don’t have to water it or vacuum up the needles.  It is not real and doesn’t smell like it.  In my time away at school and the following years of apartment living, I’ve gone through several fake trees. Some small and some tall, none as beautiful as my mother’s and all within my limited budget (those perfect fake trees are NOT cheap).

I have begged Brandon for years for a real tree.  As with so many things, my requests often mean work for B. He wouldn’t agree to haul an evergreen up (or down) the stairs in our walk-up apartments.  He promised me that when we had a real house, I’d get a real tree.  Technically, we should have had one last year but it was freezing in the house last winter - we weren’t spending enough time in the living room to make it worth the trouble.

This year, Santa came early and brought us the gift of heat (more on that in another post).  So, we’ve been spending a lot of time living in the living room.  And this year, we got to live with a tree… a real one.

It is tall and perfect and bright.  For someone who didn’t seem very interested in real trees, Brandon has quite an eye for these things.  Well done, Mr. Gary.