Jan. 18, 2006
This past holiday season was the year of the great Christmas tree debate.
In an attempt to make my fiancee from Minnesota feel more at home during a "brown" Christmas with my family, my dad suggested that we buy a small tree for the house in Long Island.
My mom, alarmed that a Christmas tree would single-handedly destroy the entire religion of Islam and possibly several smaller faiths, promptly vetoed that idea. Never mind the fact that there were already several forms of plant life in the house that could conceivably qualify as Christmas trees. Calling it a "Christmas" tree amounted to cardinal sin to my mom. I think she felt the same way about my Clay Aiken Christmas CD.
So my dad and I reached a compromise with my mom. We bought a 3-foot tree. The stack of presents next to the tree dwarfed it. But what it represented, a mixing of cultures, made it all the more meaningful.
You see, growing up, I never had a tree. Or lights. Or any traditional holiday decorations. I always thought dreidels were just fancy tops with indecipherable markings. So while my parents duked it out over the meaning of a tree at home, I turned my attention to my own apartment. For my first Christmas with the fiancee, I went all out. I wanted to surprise her with the best Christmas display ever.
I strung up Christmas lights (I called it "mood lighting" back in college). I put up stockings with our names on them and shoved them chock full of gifts. Since I have a small car and a very flammable apartment, a real tree was out. So I opted for an artificial 6-foot-tall, pre-lit "Scott's Pine," which looked spiffy enough to me. Also, a fake tree had less risk of containing a live squirrel that could possibly be set ablaze by Christmas lights. Chalk up the safety bonus.
I was amazed at how it all fit into so small a box. I was less amazed at how confusing it was to put it together. And it looked downright anemic when I was finally done.
I asked my co-workers what I had done wrong. "Did you use tinsel?" one asked. I wasn't even entirely sure what that was. It sounded like a musical instrument. A fleeting image of French horns and tubas weighing down my frail tree flashed in my head. But after it was explained to me, I was relieved. French horns are expensive.
I went out and bought a box of round "satin-covered" ornaments. I initially had visions of flames shooting out of my windows and the neighbors' young son kicking me in the kneecaps after the firefighters came out of my apartment and declared my ornaments to be the cause of the fire that burned down half my complex and the one next to it. But the cashier assured me that wouldn't happen. Good enough for me.
After painstakingly positioning the ornaments on the tree (read: randomly tossing onto) I stepped back and admired my handiwork. Not bad for a guy without a clue about Christmas.
The genXchange column runs every other Wednesday. Ahmad is a copy editor at the Press & Sun-Bulletin. Write to him at wahmad@pressconnects.com.
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