To tree or not to tree

**Not to panic . . . not really a Christmas post**

For several years, we have been putting Christmas trees in several windows – upstairs and down. It started when I bought our first artificial tree back in maybe 1997 when I was in a funk because the weather was too bad for my folks to come down and for us all to go to Fort Wayne. So, I went to the old Wal-Mart and bought a fake tree on sale. I brought it home, took it upstairs to the sitting room and opened the box. I thought, “What have I done?” It looked like a pole with sticks angled on it. I caught on after a while to the fact you were supposed to free the branches from their squashed shipping posItion and it looked a little better.

That’s the tree on which I started hanging the broken and worn-out ornaments, the kitchen utensils and things that weren’t Christmas tree ornaments but were things that I liked to look at. It is THE SITTING ROOM TREE.

Then I bought another on sale and when my grandchildren came to live with me, I had a frenzy period.

And somewhere along the line, family members got depressed and sick and upset and didn’t want Christmas and I wound up decorating as if I could chase and catch good cheer. Well, you can’t. I decided last year not to do it, but I did.

Now, my daughter-in-law who is a nurse has come home on two or three ocassions and said that patients, on learning where she lives, have remarked how they look forward to seeing the trees in the windows. She could be lying through her teeth; I don’t know.

I don’t know if I am going to do it or not . . . but I did go up and sort out all the artificial branches. Maybe there are people out there who like to see them, who like the twinkling of the lights in the windows at night. People who look at them and feel a moment or so of good cheer. Perhaps keeping Christmas well for them will an act of good cheer and spirit for me.

Well, at least I will do the sitting room tree, the first one – the one that reminds me of people I have loved . . . and in one way or another are here no more.

Oh, yeah, I guess I’ll put an ornament made out of duct tape on it