Seasonal shifts

When the first load of laundry goes in before five-thirty, you know it is going to be a productive day.

If things continue on track, this will be the day of the great seasonal shift: moving things around to make room for the Christmas tree.

Several months ago I gave my old tree - a barely used, six foot tall prelit, fold-up branch beauty -to some friends, as I hadn't used it more than two years out of the last five. My intent was to wait until next year to purchase a new one, once I'm in a condo and have a sense of what will fit.

That resolution lasted until Target's before Thanksgiving sale. In the store for other reasons, somehow I found myself standing in front of an array of trees, all marked down fifty percent. One of them jumped into my cart.

It's a perfect Charlie Brown of a tree: a scant four feet tall with stick straight branches, it proudly proclaims its artificiality. But for all the obvious (cheap) fakeness, I love this tree. It reminds me of the first tree I had in this flat.

Move-in day was three days before Christmas. The major furniture consisted of a bedroom set, a kitchen table and chairs purchased from a previous tenant and a steamer trunk full of books. My mother had sent along (mostly to get it out of her house) a small old tree she had used when she went through her "less is more" phase. Scrawny, worn and small, it was just what I needed to turn a mostly empty flat into a home.

Thanks to my mom's persistent habit of giving us ornaments for Christmas each year (whose mom didn't do that?) and my own tendency to pick things up on sale, there were enough decorations to cover the branches. In fact, since the "branches" were simply straight rods of artificial grass covered wire sticking out from the center pole, each one could hold multiple ornaments. A 100-bulb string of lights, one each pearl bead and gold bead garland and a gilt edged victorian angel on top completed the decorating.

This new tree is a powerful reminder of that first one; given this should be my last Christmas in this flat, it seems a fitting way to come full circle.  Once the season is over, all the decorations and the tree will be carefully picked through and packed away until they are brought out in a new place, in a new beginning.