Christmas Tree Traditions
Christmas tree sales are up this year. I’m happy about that.
Christmas tree decorating was an art form in my house, my father’s only hobby other than pruning the rose bushes.
When I was a child in San Francisco, there were a lot of industrial properties, vacant lots and winos in the area known as South of Market. Nobody went there. These days it’s called SoMA, and there are palm trees, retro streetcars, pricey condos and trendy wine bars. Everybody goes there.
My father drove a gray Rambler American station wagon, circa 1963. Each December, about the middle of the month, we’d climb in and drive to that area South of Market where a nice couple from Oregon sold Christmas trees they had grown. My father was partial to the noble fir and Silver Tip, and the tree farm would cut one especially for him. If he liked it, we bought it. But if it wasn’t quite the right shape, or had too many gaps in the branches, or seemed too dry, we would spend the morning inspecting dozens, many dozens, of potential trees.
Selection made, we’d buy a few extra branches of the same species and some garland for the banister and mantel. The tree went atop the car, tied with twine that ran through the doors. The drive home was tense, certain as I was that the tree would tear loose from the roof and flop ungracefully to the pavement, where it would be run over by oncoming traffic, thus ruining Christmas as surely as if the elves were on strike.
It always made it home and once I was big enough, I was allowed to help carry it up the stairs, wide end first.
On Saturday afternoon my father would place the tree across the backs of two kitchen chairs used as sawhorses. With a hand drill, he would add holes in the trunk at the spots where nature had failed to provide a symmetrical branch. The extra boughs purchased at the tree lot were sharpened pencil fashion and inserted in the holes, sealed with wood putty and suspended from the branch above with thin picture wire. The added branches often outlived the tree and were impossible to detect once the lights and ornaments were in place.
With the tree shaped acceptably, lights were added Saturday night. Four strings of eight were affixed near the trunk and strings of 16 were set in quadrants farther out on the branches. The cords were wired into place along the underside of branches to hide them and sockets were tied into place so the bulbs were perpendicular to the branches that held them.
My job was to stand back and inspect, ensuring that no two same-colored lights appeared too close to one another anywhere on the tree. I never underestimated the importance of my role.
“Pay attention,” my father said each year. “Someday you’ll have to do this by yourself.”
On Sunday ornaments were added, plain but shiny balls near the trunk to reflect light, heirloom ornaments out front where they could be seen. The smallest ornaments adorned the highest branches, largest at the bottom, all sides of the tree getting equal attention.
Gold garland was draped symmetrically, looping up on one row where the line above looped down. The ends had to meet in the back, where they couldn’t be seen. Icicles went on one at a time, evenly.
On Sunday afternoon I was charged with putting a rope around the base of the tree and, working on my belly, sliding it into position in the corner, then crawling out without disturbing any of the ornaments.
My mother added a white tree skirt and a lighted village of miniature houses under the tree.
The last time we did that was in 1975. But this year, I hung the last heirloom ornament on the lowest branch, and looked at my son. I told him, though at 3 years old he is still too young to understand, that I hoped he’d been paying attention; he’d have to do this by himself someday.