Promises to keep

I feel like writing a post and don't know what to write, so be warned. It's probably because I just spent 2 hours hanging lights on my mother's tree. I guess that means it's story time.

I grew up in east L.A. in a small 3-bedroom house. The living room was about ten feet by fifteen feet, and it was probably the largest room in the house. One of the long walls was along the front of the house, a window set in the middle, and in normal time there were two recliners under the window with a short table between them. I think it belonged to my grandparents; pretty much everything in the house was second-hand or very cheap, because we didn't have a lot of money.

(That's something that a most of the people who know me don't really get. We weren't "poor", but we were definitely lower-middle class; spaghetti and fried chicken are my favorite foods, but that's because they were cheap to make and, therefore, cooked often. The fact that, nowadays, my last few birthday presents to myself have consisted of a sports car and first-class trips to Maui is probably, in a lot of ways, a response to that past.)

Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving, my parents would take us out and we'd pick up a Christmas tree. We didn't have much room to place it, and couldn't afford the big ones anyway, so we'd buy a smallish 4-5 ft one and place it on the table between the chairs in the window. Decorations were mostly felt ornaments, hand-me-downs (or heirlooms, if you like) from my great-grandparents, and flimsy strings of light that my dad would repair over and over again. Outside, over the garage and across the front of the house, we'd hang one long string of the huge old outdoor christmas lights - again, often repaired. Stockings, of course, went over the fireplace.

It wasn't much, but it made the place feel better - more cheerful, I guess.

Of course, then there was the divorce, the arguments, the re-marriages to other people, but the tree always went in the same spot. Even when my mom had to save pennies for food, when we went to other people's houses for Thanksgiving because we couldn't afford it on our own, we'd still go out the day after Thanksgiving and pick up the tree.

Well, years go by; my mother got a few promotions and met my stepfather. They moved out of the house in El Monte (originally to rent it, but they sold it after their first rental agreement resulted in a SWAT team and a drug bust) to a much larger one out in the boondocks. Money was still a little tight but less so.

When Christmas came around, the only room where a tree would make sense was the combination living/dining room: about 35 feet long, the entire length of one side of the house, with a huge, 20-ft vaulted ceiling. That first year, we got a slightly larger tree - about 7 feet - and put it in the front window. It felt tiny: with almost no other furniture in the room, it was just swallowed.

The next year, we got one about the same size and, instead, put it in the middle - which was worse. Even with more ornaments and new lights, a 7-ft tree will never look decent with a 20-ft ceiling.

So, the third year, we upgraded. I think that one was about 10 ft tall, which necessitated buying a lot more lights and ornaments, but it looked decent if a little sparse. So that was the trend from then on: we'd go out on the Friday after Thanksgiving and cut down a large tree. The tallest was narrow but about 13 feet; the biggest was only 11 feet or so, but easily the same across. When we got that last one, it was so heavy it took three of us to carry it, and it bent the first stand we tried to put it on; we ended up having to get this massive steel tree stand to hold it.

Well, time passes. My parents are older, and my step-dad just can't carry something that large; I can't do it myself, and the step-siblings aren't always around. So, a few years ago my mother consented, shopped around, and finally bought a fake tree. It's still tall, about 11 feet, but it goes up in pieces, branch by branch. It actually looks very real. I miss the pine smell, but since I'm allergic to the sap, at least I don't have to deal with the rashes any more.

I'm still required to hang the surface lights, though: I'm the only one tall enough to reach, even with a ladder. So, my mother puts it up over a few days, adding in the white lights in the middle as she goes, then asks me when I can hang the lights on its surface. It's usually the weekend after Thanksgiving - sometimes it's been up as early as mid-November, if they're going on a trip - but it was a little late this year.

So, tonight, I took out the strands and tested them; none were bad, and there were no significant outages. I start at the top, winding clockwise, weaving them in and out of the branches. When they go on, they're dark - it's just easier than having them plugged in - so when I'm done, there's a little bit of a "celebration" in turning them on and seeing it lit up: the twinkling of rainbow stars on a green sky.

My mother will decorate it over the next few days, and this weekend I'll probably hang the lights outside the house. In the end, there will be 2000 lights on the tree: 8 100-strands of white in the middle and 6 200-strands on the outside. There will be over a hundred white bows, over 150 24-karat gold ornaments, and another 200 or so other ornaments from the years. She's stopped buying them; there's simply no room left.

But it's worth it. It's beautiful. And with the garland on the banisters, the stockings, the nutcracker music boxes and the ceramic train, it's the only time the house gets close to feeling like home to me.

I don't "believe" in Christmas - I never really have. But, maybe, if I pretend hard enough, in the end it doesn't make a difference whether I do or not.