Better Days

This is the first year that I've had a real live Christmas tree. When I was growing up, we had a cheap artificial tree - we loved it, and it was decorated in the eclectic style that always seems to accompany a house with children and pets, but there was no escaping the shaggy, patchy appearance of an extremely old, battered fake tree. And since then, either I lived by myself and didn't have a tree or my sweetie and I didn't manage to find the space and time for a tree more than a foot tall.

This year, though, we decided to make the space and time. A little furniture rearranging left us with a perfect place to put the tree, and the VFW post just a few blocks from our house happened to be selling trees. So we took a free afternoon and wandered through their little evergreen forest until we found the right tree - smallish, and unpretentious, but full and green and adorable.

Another run to a department store gave us a set of bright colored lights and enough ornaments to decorate the tree until we build up our own collection of colorful, eclectic, meaningful decorations.

Between the bright, cheery, wonderfully-pine-smelling tree, the holiday cookie brainstorming, and the delight that is the holiday-wishes community, I'm slowly managing to kick-start my holiday spirit and cheer myself up.

I can't believe I waited this long to get a real tree. I can't imagine I'll go another year without one, if it stays this green and wonderful.....