Just Get The Christmas Tree

You’re never going to have a life to live again. Everything is terrible and everyone feels bad all of the time. Donald Trump is president-elect. It starts getting dark outside at 3:30 p.m. If you sort of want to get a Christmas tree you should just get one.

“I don’t know. My apartment is small. It’s going to be a mess to clean up. I’ll have to water it.” That’s you, which is why it’s in italics. Here’s me in normal typeface: “These are bad reasons to not get a Christmas tree if you have any desire to get a Christmas tree.”

It’s OK that your apartment is small; you can make room and get the size of tree that fits. It is going to be a mess to clean up, that’s true, but you’ll manage. You will have to water it, that’s true, but you’ll manage. And then you’ll have a Christmas tree.

“But I don’t want a Christmas tree.” Oh. This post isn’t for you, then. Continue reading only if you’re on the fence about getting a Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree makes your apartment smell like a Christmas tree. You put lights on it. You put ornaments on it. You put whatever you want on it. You listen to holiday music while you put the things on it and you drink hot chocolate. “By myself?” Yes, it’s OK if you’re by yourself. “With someone else, or other people?” That’s good too.

In the morning, you plug in your Christmas tree lights. You make coffee and you sit on the couch and you look at the tree, all lit up, and drink your coffee. It’s quiet. It brings you a unique December morning joy, morning joy to which you don’t have access during any other month of the year. (Give or take.) You breathe in the scent.

Looking at your computer and knowing that you will look at your computer almost every day for the rest of your life is a little more tolerable near a lighted tree, this is a promise.

When you come home from being outside of your apartment, you smell the tree very much. You come in from the cold, you take off your coat, you smell the tree, and then you plug in the tree lights. The lights on the tree light up the dark night more than just your normal lights do. They bring you cheer. And the ornaments!

The ornaments. From your travels, from your childhood, from Etsy. You have your favorites but you love them all except for the “filler” ornaments that you got from the dollar store that you think are just fine. The filler ornaments have their role and it’s a very important one; the other ornaments are nice to them, there is no animosity here. We’re all friends.

There are a lot of reasons to not get a Christmas tree if you only sort of want one. You gotta transport it. You gotta clean up after it. Sometimes you bring it in and there are weird new bugs hiding in there and they’re bugs you’ve never even seen before and they’re very scary. Yes. Getting a tree is a pain. But it’s only a pain for a brief period of time at the beginning and then again at the end. If you avoided things that were painful at the beginning and the end you would avoid everything, excluding only the things that are painful for the whole time.

There are only bad things to come after tree time is over. It is important that you make the most of tree time.

“Do you have a Christmas tree?” No, not yet.

Thank you.