I’m down under the house, yanking at the plastic green Christmas tree that is covered in orange garbage bags, dust, spider droppings and possibly a snake curled up around the trunk ready to lunge at me when I unfold the tree.
Chick is ready with the can of Mortein behind me peering from behind my legs. I tip-toe up the stairs dragging this beast of a tree up to the first floor. I trudge back down for the mid section and then finally a third reluctant trip for the bent tip of the tree.
A fourth trip into the bowels of the house to hoist the box of shitty tinsel and fish wired baubles and glitter balls to line the tree.
I run downstairs to my car to fetch my ipod to play Mariah Carey Christmas tunes and once it’s smacking muffled beats from chickys bedroom, I re-enter the loungeroom to find the tree under attack.
There is a ball of twisted tinsel hoiked up into the tree, precariously perched in the top rungs of the plastic. The boys are throwing the baubles up aiming for imaginary angels.
‘Oh my god, boys! Stop throwing them up – you need to place them on’. I look over, both are now stringing balls and ornaments on in clumps on the tree, not evenly and rapidly losing concentration.
Not more than exactly two minutes of tree decorating and they are wrestling on the floor, one of them, I can’t tell which, is stuck in an old Santa sack and his leg is about to come tearing through the red faded felt.
I continue hanging decorations thinking about how my mother and us kids used to gently swan around hanging baubles and listening to music and eating Christmas cake. I never recall rumbling my sisters into the tree and hurling tinsel balls into the fakery.
I will say, the tree design turned out fine and it was hilarious with both men pretending to be presents under the tree. Christmas officially arrived when we switched the lights on and we all went quiet… well, for a moment at least.
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