She excavates a half-dozen big boxes, unearthing a trove of holiday
pictures, holiday serving trays, holiday snow globes, holiday
lights, holiday table settings, holiday throw blankets, holiday
knickknacks, and holiday you-name-its.
I carry the boxes up from the basement and complain about it.
She dons holiday colors, as if the holidays were a sports team.
I think, Push 'em back, push 'em back - waaaaaay back!
For the previous year and a half, we lived in a house with a
gigantic holly tree. You might say that it was
Christmas at our
house all year-round. You might also say that if I never see holly
again, it'll be too soon.
Let me say right off the bat that I have nothing against holly as a
symbol of the season. It's holly itself I have a beef with.
You know what a holly tree is? I didn't. I thought holly grew on a
bush.
Apparently, though, it grows on a bush and a tree.
Lucky us.
The holly tree in our backyard was the size of our three-story
house. We were told that it was the largest holly tree in the world
and that it had even been featured in magazines. When we first
moved into the house, I would brag about it. We'd sit on the deck
with friends and family and I'd say, "See that? Holly tree. Can you
believe it? They say it's the biggest one in the world. Been in
magazines, they say. I don't know. Maybe it's just the biggest in
the Western Hemisphere. Whatever, it's big, huh? Beautiful. Like
Christmas year-round."
After living with it for a few short weeks, my story changed. "See
that? Holly tree. Put your shoes on. The leaves have claws. And
they rain down like a monsoon. It's like having a lawn full of live
crabs. Pain in the neck, that holly tree. Our luck to have the
biggest one in the world."