The Clever Pup's Guide to Making Christmas Work - Enjoy.... A Real Tree.

copyright Hazel Smith

Ten days to go and if you haven't already bought your tree, make sure to get  a real one.  I always enjoy a real tree. It makes Christmas work for me and the preparations just make me a little more mindful. Oh, and the smell when you come down to breakfast the next day! Sure, you have to water it and you get needles all over the place but it's worth the fuss. 

I always want to purchase the tree a little earlier, but I think we will wait until my son gets home form university. Because we are lucky urbanites we are used to having a tree-seller on the next block.  After dinner, (it always happens at night) the three of us put on our worst coats - because there's always sap - and  visit the hatchet-faced Polish twins who set up around the corner. They've seen us for fifteen years but now they are missing. This year we will have to visit the Chinese grocery on the next block or the chic florists on the way.   I get to pick and it seems we always come home with a balsam, about 7 feet tall. The fellows carry it home lengthwise between them.

We let it settle for a bit and then I have a freak-out about how fast time is racing by. Didn't I just do this? Seriously, I just did this 3 months ago? Didn't I?

Lights go on first. Then Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas goes on the turntable And, then, let the decorating begin.