O Tannenbaum, where art thou?

STIPIMM: “O Canada,” the Canadian national anthem

It’s December, and in the McKenzie household, that means the apartment gets decked in all sorts of Christmas paraphernalia. Trinkets, hangings, lights, ornaments, all brought out from storage to make their annual showing. It’s mostly Bridget’s doing; she’s got a stronger sense of personal holiday tradition than I do. So last week, when all the decorations went up, it was mainly Bridget who did most of the hanging. That doesn’t seem to bother her too much, but then, she could be hiding a simmering rage.

One tradition that Bridget and I have that we will duplicate again this year is buying a dated tree ornament, i.e., a cute decoration that has the year prominently stamped on it. It started when we bought a “Our First Christmas together, 2003” ornament with two cute mice cuddling together on it. And since then, it’s something we’ve just decided to continue, going to Target and getting a nice dated ornament. We haven’t made the trip this year yet, but we’ll probably do it this weekend.

However, once we get the ornament, we have a larger problem that will have to be overcome: we don’t have a Christmas tree. Both years we’ve been together, we got a live tree down the street from where we lived in Silver Spring. Now, we want another live tree to put in our living room, but unfortunately, there aren’t the abundance of Christmas tree vendors that we had in Washington, D.C. The main reason, of course, is that in D.C., we lived in a suburb, where there was actually room for small vendors; in Boston, temporary retail space is harder to come by.

That said, we were finally able to find a nearby vendor, but only through some Internet sleuthing. Now, there’s another problem. We don’t have a car here in Boston. My car, Phoebe, is vacationing up in New Hampshire until her parents can afford to have her in the city. Bridget had dreams of carrying our tree home ourselves, like they did in “When Harry Met Sally.” But, the nearest Christmas tree seller to our house is over a mile away, and the idea of hauling a tree that distance in the blistering cold we’ve been having this week quickly extinguished that dream.

So, for the past week and a half, the area we cleared in our living room for our Christmas tree has remained woefully empty. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however; Bridget will be going home to New Hampshire this weekend and bringing Phoebe back with her for a few days, so we’ll be able to cart the tree home that way. And then, once we decorate the tree with ornaments new and old, it will truly feel like Christmastime has really arrived once again at the McKenzie home.