Ode to My Christmas Tree

So, the To Do List is going along nicely. Sadie is taken care of, thanks to my brother and his family. We have a place to stay in New York, and the Christmas decorations are down. Things are progressing along as the countdown continues, Tminus 7 days now, 3 to departure). Taking down my Christmas tree always makes me melancholy. I love having this light filled tree in my house. This year, however, it is a sweet reminder of good friends. Like I said before good friends find many ways to help.

So, here's my ode to my CHristmas tree- Back in the early days of learning that the tumor they removed from my foot was indeed not a benign Schwanoma, but something far worse, I told only a few people. I wasn't ready to talk about it and I couldn't deal with people knowing as a way of protecting myself. The first person that I told was a friend from work. The next day he was listening to me talk about all of this. Back then I was raw and talked in stream of conscience even more then usual. Anyways, the conversation drifted from fear about my future to how can I decorate my house for Christmas ( I was still on crutches then, too). He stopped me there and offered to get me my Christmas tree. Sure enough that Saturday he and his partner showed up at my house with one of the best Christmas trees I've ever had. They put it in the stand, made it straight, put lights on it and put ornaments on the top part of the tree leaving the rest for me to do. Now a note about the putting on of lights- a- they determined I didn't have enough lights and went out to get more for me- b- they put on the lights simultaneously in two separate patterns. One vertically in swaths of sort, the other circleing (sp) the tree. Whatever the method the tree was beautiful. We laughed at the time that taking down the tree would be hard, but really they were right it did need more lights. I have sat in front of it many nights over the past month and thought about them and appreciated their gift to me. It was a time consuming, thougtful gift that I have treasured.

Today the tree had to come down and a different friend is coming over to get it back out of my house. So, we laughed about getting the lights off the tree when they were going up, but let me tell you there really was no pattern to these lights. I am the kind of person who carefully takes my lights off of the tree and puts them back in the box they came in. One of my very few anal things, but this year, I gave in and took the lights off and let them fall to the ground encircling the tree to be untangled (and yes back in their boxes, later). My living room seems somehow empty now, but it is one more big thing done on the List. A special thanks to Robert, Joel and Chris. Now on to packing....