This here, in Christmas parlance, is a tree skirt. It is brightly colored, as is required during this season of color blindness, and it even has little ribbon ties to protect the modesty of the tree’s unshaven stump.
I had a real kick hanging ornaments on the tree, even though I tried not to show it. I think you can be excited about decorating the tree only when you’re shorter than it.
We didn’t have real Christmas trees in Singapore. The best we did was a four-foot plastic one, but hey, we lived in the tropics and these damned things were imported and cost as much as your firstborn son.
Christmas has become a commercial endeavor: Wrapping paper that used to cost 10 cents a foot now run for $10 an inch (What’s that? Like a billion percent profit?), random hanging ornaments go for as much as Austrian crystal, and trees have a clothing line at Target.
I admit it, I’m a Christmas pushover. Put a santa hat on a cute animal and I’ll buy anything it’s selling. Got tinsel? I’ll buy it in 20 different colors. I just can’t help myself.
But I’m glad to see that the most valuable item this season is free.
Jay’s mom made this little Christmas bell ornament when he and his brothers were little. They each have one. [Cue soaring string instrumental.] Whenever he’s in town for Christmas, his mom hands it off to him to put it on the tree.
You know what I’m going to say here, so I’m not.
[String music ends.]
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