My Little Old Lady Christmas Tree — Showing It Who’s Boss

Old is good. Really good. You’ve packed in a lot of years. They’ve added up. And now you have more memories than you know what to do with — memories of childhood puppies, teenaged prom dresses, young adult job searches and, in time, parent-teacher conferences. Most recently, if you’ve played your cards right, you’ve scored a few memorable years of creaky old age.

It’s the creaky part that’s on my mind today, because it’s time to buy myself a Christmas tree and haul it into the house. Trouble is, I’m just as creaky in the knees and knuckles as I was in 2021, when I brought home my first Christmas tree as a widow.

It was a small tree, a little old lady Christmas tree, modest enough to fit on my coffee table, but pretty. Here’s what I said about it back in 2021.

My Little Old Lady Christmas Tree — How I Showed It Who’s Boss

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Where I come from . . .  that is, when I come from, which is the middle of the twentieth century . . . wrestling a Christmas tree into its stand is the man’s job. Slice off the bottom of the trunk, trim off the extra limbs, carry the sticky, damp thing into the house, and heave it into the Christmas tree stand.

Ignore the pine needles on the rug. Hope someone else will think to vacuum them up.

For forty-four years, the job of trimming and manhandling the annual Christmas tree belonged to Jon. He, too, was of midcentury vintage so there was no discussion of who would do what when it came to wrestling the spruce or the fir into submission.

But Jon is gone, and Christmas is coming. So are the kids — the 38-year-old, the 40-year-old and the very grown-up 5-year-old.

A Christmas tree is in order. But how to get a tree from the Christmas tree lot into the trunk of the car, down the front stairs, through the front door, and into your Christmas tree stand?

How to Show a Christmas Tree Who’s Boos

1. Start by acknowledging that from now on you will be one of those little old ladies with a modest, table top Christmas tree on her coffee table.
2. At the Christmas tree lot, find a pretty one. Grab it by the trunk and pick it up. If you can’t lift it, find smaller pretty tree. Keep going until you find a tree that is pretty and that you can lift with one arm. Back home, you will need the other arm to hold onto the handrail as you go down the front steps.
3. Pay for the tree. Have one of the Christmas tree lot guys slice off the bottom inch or so of the trunk so that the tree can suck up water. Let him put the tree into the trunk of your car. It fits in there, because you are a little old lady now and you have bought a tree small enough to fit upon a coffee table and inside the trunk of your car.
4. At home, carry the tree down the stairs and into the house, one hand on the handrail.
5. Stick the tree into the Christmas tree stand.
6. Notice that the tree refuses to stand up straight. Its lower branches are in the way.
7. Accept that this must be attended to.
8. Consider phoning the two guys across the street. They’d be happy to help.
9. Decide to hold off on enlisting the two guys. You don’t want to ask them for too many favors. Save them for when you are truly desperate, like when you can’t get the lid off the jar of black olive tapenade from Provence.
10. Haul the tree back outdoors to the front yard. Saw off the guilty limbs. Go slow. Keep your hands and fingers out of the way of the saw. If you slice a finger, who will take you to the ER? The guys would. But you want to save them for the tapenade.

I wrestled the newly trimmed tree into its stand, tightened the bolts and gave it some water. Photos by Barbara Newhall

11. Pick up the tree one more time and take it indoors. You can do this safely because you did your Pilates this morning.

12. Drop the tree into the Christmas tree stand.

13. Tighten the bolts.

14. Water the tree.

15. Take a selfie with the tree, which is now upright and steadfast.

16. Send the selfie to the kids as evidence of your extraordinary competence, independence and life satisfaction. You don’t want the kids to worry about you. Because you don’t worry about you.

17. Right?

18. Right.

More thoughts on how to do Christmas at “Can Christmas Be Christmas Without the Kids?”   And a gift-giving idea if you’re 15 years old at “A Forgotten Gift From My Teenaged Daughter. No Good After Dec. 31.”