Fake and Fantastic

(Originally written December 2006)

Oh. My. Goddess. I've done something I swore I would never do. I bought a fake xmas tree for the holidays this year. Now, there are numerous ways to rationalise the fake versus real thing, but I won't lie about it---the real reason I bought it is entirely practical. Real trees come from tree farms, which are crawling with happy families selecting just the right tree for their picture-perfect holidays. These lovely (but monstrous) trees require trucks or at least roof racks on large vehicles to ferry them home; I drive a sedan. Real trees weigh a wet tonne, have spiky, scratchy, unpredictable branches, sometimes resident spiders, and (as we discovered one memorable year) may have been sprayed by a skunk... Worse, they need to be cut down and lifted into the above-mentioned vehicles by burly people, generally husbands or significant others. Then, once back at the ranch, they need to be wrestled off the truck, trimmed with a hacksaw, squashed through the doorway, dragged through the house (leaving a trail of needles and other filth), and then power-lifted into the profanity-inducing tree stand. If no one has suffered a heart attack during the process thus far, the tree then needs to be levelled. This means one person shifts it back and forth repeatedly in the stand---blindly, of course, as the tree wrangler's face is buried in prickly branches---while other people stand back assessing how close to level it is getting. In my experience, the tree generally tries to fall over at least once during this stage. When the tree is basically upright, or when everyone essentially accepts the fact that it's as good as it's going to get, the stand must be tightened down around the trunk---more branches in the face for the tree adjuster---and filled with water. I would totally understand if the person half-buried in tree were to say that the tree really requires whisky at this point, and not water, and elected to stay face-down under the tree for the rest of the season quietly drinking whatever whisky the tree didn't consume.

Now, after the removal of stray needles, branches, sap smears, hacksaws, etc., it's time to put on the lights! Yay! This means untangling the lights first, which can take an inordinate amount of time, inducing more profanity. It also assumes that the lights actually work, an assumption often disappointed. If the children haven't learned a full roster of curse-words before, by the end of putting up the xmas tree they jolly well will have done. Don't forget that the tree is tall enough that getting lights to the top will necessitate a ladder, and that it is likely wide enough that getting lights around it will require a foolish-looking, tiring relay technique, or dangerous leaning about whilst perched on the ladder. Ok, finally all is ready for the ultimate purpose of the whole exercise: distributing about half a million breakable glass baubles around the tree. Ohhhh, damn---did the ladder get put away prematurely? With children helping, a certain percentage of ornaments may fall victim to their annual fate of being reduced to sharp fragments and glass powder. By the way, how is it that we can build space stations, yet not design a wire hook that remains attached to an ornament? Naturally, all the broken glass should be vacuumed off the floor, but the hoover is probably dead now from trying to suck up several pounds of needles and small branches from before. Oops. In short, dealing with real trees is a long, arduous process which is exceedingly difficult if not suicidal to attempt as a single mother. Many of us probably seriously consider converting to the Jewish faith each winter, as most anyone can lift a menorah out of its box, stick some candles in, place it on a normal piece of furniture, and be ready. Or Diwali---lights and lamps, sweets, gifts, perhaps a garland or so...this I could manage.

This is how I came to contemplate the purchase of a fake tree. In the middle of a divorce, moving from a big house to a not-so-big one, doing the yuletide right felt important but unusually daunting. I thought, if you don't have a "real" (as in storybook perfect family) life, why do you think you need a real tree? I stood before an array of the things I had hitherto disdained in a local store, noticing their relative symmetry, the availability of petite, slender models which fit into smaller rooms with lower ceilings, the fact that the lights are already festooned onto the trees. Even better, I discovered one that came permanently anchored in an attractive urn or pot, and thus required no dodgy tree-stand antics at all... I looked about for salespeople, then surreptitiously bent down and hefted the whole damn thing into the air...eureka! I could lift it unaided! It wasn't super easy, but it didn't kill me either. The lightbulb blinked on in my head---we CAN do xmas this year! Feeling incredibly powerful and self-reliant, I collected my ticket for the chosen model, paid for it, and pulled my car up to the back of the store. An obliging young man was waiting for me with an enormous box... Uh oh. That box was bigger than my entire boot space, which in any case was full of other crap. I am the kind of person who would buy an elephant on impulse, apparently. And there was no question of shoving it into the back seat because: a) it wouldn't fit anyway, and b) my child, in bulky centre-mounted car seat, was back there. So the nice young man and I eyed it on the paving for a bit, and then I pointed out that we didn't really NEED the box...Problem solved! He sliced the box open and shoved the two rather manageable bits inside it into the car stacked up neatly. We drove it home, where the kid and I got it into the house with no real trouble at all. It is now waiting for the holidays uncomplainingly sheathed in plastic bags in the garage. I have only to carry it in, remove the plastic, insert the top half into the bottom half, and plug it in, and it's ready to decorate. Un-fecking-believable. Any whisky consumption is purely optional!

Epilogue, 13 years later... 

I still have this tree. Last year, the pre-deployed light strings finally died. This was the first instance of difficulty we experienced with my little fake tree. It was rather tricky---by which I mean viciously vexatious and damn near impossible---to remove the factory-installed lights as they were clamped onto branches at frequent intervals with tiny green plastic things which apparently were never intended for removal. Indeed they were intended, apparently, to be bomb-proof, or else to ensure the purchase of a new tree by taking gobs of fake needles with them when firmly wrenched off the branches. Huh-uh. Not happening, especially when the price of fake trees has gone up to about five times what I paid for this one over a decade ago. Wire cutters, tin snips, scissors of various kinds were utilised until the failed light strands lay in pathetic bits all over the floor, along with a fair amount of shed needles. New (and more energy efficient) light strands were wrapped and tucked about the tree. Apart from the removal of old lights and installation of the new, the entire retrieval and set-up process took, as usual, about five minutes. And now this year, once again, it stands in the corner by the hearth, wearing its baubles and shining its new fairy lights, and generally beaming out seasonal cheer. 

Do I recommend the purchase of fake trees rather than real ones? Um, no. Real evergreen trees keep farm-land profitable for farmers, help preserve open spaces, improve air quality around them, sequester some carbon during their lives, can help buffer noise and high winds, provide habitat for small creatures in growth and even after use if thoughtfully disposed of, and compost graciously and without waste back into the earth. They also have the charm of a real thing, and smell delicious. Fake trees are manufactured of metal and plastic parts, probably with toxins in some parts of the process, in Asian factories that likely would fail health and safety inspections, whence they are shipped a bazilion miles around the globe on polluting, petrol-sucking ships and planes and trucks. They are a shining example of all that is wrong with our production and consumption and marketing of things, and a real tree is going to be better in every way except ease of set-up. Personally, I think we should go back to the old-fashioned xmas trees that were small enough to sit on tables. But as I already own this fake tree, I intend to use it until it breaks irremediably, hopefully for the rest of my life. I've a husband these days who could, in theory, assist with getting in and setting up a real tree, but that isn't going to happen. For one thing, we would still need to borrow a truck from somewhere; for another, the only holiday spirit inside him comes in bottles. With my fake and fantastic tree, his involvement is limited to carrying it to and from storage, and everyone is happier. Wassail, wassail, my jolly faux tree! My glass of good whisky I raise now to thee...