Poor Christmas tree, poor Christmas tree…

In the lead-up to Christmas day, I was excited to have my very own, real, potted Christmas tree for the first time in my life. Strange, you might think, that someone can reach their thirties and never have had a real Christmas tree despite celebrating the holiday every year of their life, but I guess the heat in Australia always put my Mum off buying a real one, and the reliable plastic one was easy to put up and didn’t drop needles all over the place. The neighbours in Australia had a white Christmas tree, which now seems a bit peculiar, given the warmth of summer had usually kicked in, and while the white Christmas tree sat in their front window, we’d be having water fights on the hot pavement.

Not only had I not ever had a real Christmas tree until last Christmas, but for the previous five years, I had missed out on anything resembling a Christmas tree due to my last few abodes being too small or poorly laid out to fit one in. I was determined to change that last year, and on the first day of December, I was the proud owner of a Canadian pine tree. I decorated it with tinsel, baubles, chocolate bells and my own home-made gingerbread. I marvelled at it every morning and again every afternoon when I turned the lights on. I watered the pot and lovingly laid Christmas presents under this wonderful thing that twinkled and grew right there in my loungeroom. It was there for me when I needed a tree. It still looked lovely on Christmas Day, although some of the gingerbread and chocolates had gone missing by then.

Twelve days later, I knew I should have taken the Christmas tree outside, but it was so pretty, I left it inside. Besides, I needed to find someone who had room to plant it. I didn’t want to take it to the forest and plant it just in case it introduced any non-native tree problems. And I specifically wanted a potted Christmas tree that could be replanted because I always feel so sad when I see these once lovely, proudly decorated trees stripped of all those decorations and tossed on a cold balcony to die and eventually be removed when someone can be bothered. I loved my tree so much that I took my time to find a new home for it, and after a few attempts, a family in La Clusaz offered to take it and plant it in their yard. All I had to do now was undress the decorations from the tree and get it to their yard.

I undressed the tree tonight. In the process, most of the lower branches dropped the few remaining needles that hadn’t already dropped off, while the needles from the upper branches trickled through the tree with every bauble removal. I think the tree is dead. A visiting friend helped me get it outside, and it’s now dumped in the snow, surrounded by its own needles. Accuse me of having an overactive imagination, but seeing that tree out there tonight was like seeing a nearly-dead body, with the needles being the blood leaking from the body. And I feel guilty. I’ve killed the tree that brought me so much happiness in December! Had I found it a home earlier and not been so selfish, the tree might still be alive, nay, thriving today! Instead, I now have a dead tree in my front yard — the one thing that I wanted to avoid doing. Worse still, I know I’ll be cursing it dropping more needles when it goes to the tip in the back of a car. I know a Christmas tree is probably one of the most objectified things in the world, but I wanted to make sure mine would revert back to just a tree once Christmas passed. So, Christmas tree, this is your blog entry, to say thank you for the lovely December, and I’m so sorry for killing you.

Should I just get a plastic tree next year?