Family won't keep holiday boxed up

At the urging of my youngest daughter, I carefully maneuvered through our crowded attic to haul out our boxed Christmas tree, along with lights, ornaments and other assorted holiday decorations.

Every year at this time, I vow to reorganize the attic to more easily access all those Christmas decorations so I won't feel like I'm stuck in the middle of an obstacle course.

But once the holiday is over and everything is packed away, I forget all about the obstacle course until the Christmas season rolls around again.

At any rate, thanks to Bailey's pleas for some holiday decorations -- an early birthday present for our 9-year-old -- I hauled the holiday decorations downstairs. We carefully attached the branches to the frame and before long our artificial tree took shape, looking no worse for having been stuck in a box for the past 11 months.

Then it was time to wrap the tree in lights. I had planned to put up colored lights. I found a box crammed full of strands of lights. The only problem was that when I plugged them in, none worked.

It's amazing how often this problem occurs. Our nation can send men and women into space thanks to the marvels of technology, but we can't manufacture lights that last more than a couple of Christmas seasons.

I thought of going to the store and buying new Christmas lights. But then I stumbled across a trash bag in my attic that was full of strands of lights. They were all white lights, but they worked.

So Bailey and I decided on decorating our entire tree in white lights. Joni and our other daughter, Becca, were out of town on a Scout trip. They missed out on all the fun of untangling Christmas lights.

In the end, Bailey and I managed to light up the tree without violating the city's electrical code. I half expected a strand or two to suddenly go dark because of some electrical short. But fortunately that didn't happen.

Soon Bailey and I launched into the task of hanging ornaments on the tree. The challenge is that there are always more ornaments in the attic than those plastic or metal hooks you need to hang them up.

Actually, I ended up hanging most of the ornaments because a television show kept distracting Bailey.

Surprisingly, we managed to hang the ornaments without breaking a single one.

Of course, most Europeans probably wouldn't like our tree. According to one Internet site, artificial trees still are considered in bad taste in most of Europe.

Americans, however, have never had a problem with bad taste. As a result, we don't mind artificial trees. Besides, we care about the forests.

The first artificial trees were tabletop feather trees made from green-dyed goose feathers. They originated in Germany in the 19th century.

The first modern artificial Christmas trees were made by companies which made brushes. Today, artificial trees look less like brushes and more like the real thing.

When all is said and done, the real challenge isn't putting up the tree, it's getting the tree back into the box when Christmas is over.

Some of the best presents come in small packages. An artificial Christmas tree isn't one of them.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.