The Tree

Recommended dosage may vary.

As a baby, Eleven* rarely even spit up. For some of us, however, getting dizzy is a learned trait. Now, it goes like this: after about 30 minutes in the car, she starts to feel a little queasy. Then, we discuss pulling over. “If you’re going to spew, spew in this” I say, handing El a piece of tupperware procured for this exact purpose. 

She does not get the reference. Then, she either collects her bearings or hurls into the Tupperware, which is then properly sealed for disposal.

But today, none of that matters. It’s Rex Manning Day Christmas Tree day! 

But wait just a minute, an interloper might interject. Why are you, Marvelous Marks, a Jew, getting some greenery that, uh, usually isn’t partaken by your kind? 

As a kid, we never had a Christmas tree due to previously disclosed Judaism, and it wasn’t something I missed at the time. But, as I grew older, the pull of aboricide via axe during the December months began to appeal to my better angels. Also, as an alternative to SAD lights, a blinking menagerie of strings just makes sense during a time that is normally dim, desolate, and cruel to the human species.

And ever since El came along, I have gotten revved up about it. In the midst of full t-shirt weather in late September, I poll the family: should we go get the tree today? My wildly premature holiday mirth quashed in unison by my traitorous kin. Too soon! they shout. But then, a few weeks later, when a light breeze brisks the air, I repeat my plea for a 7.5 foot holiday evergreen, only to be shouted down once again. 

This is the War on Christmas I’ve been hearing about, I protest, with my trademark look that says: I am not proud, or tired (if you wanna end war and stuff you gotta sing loud).

It’s a good refrain, one that I replay every couple of weeks until the exact date I am allowed to saw some lumber (or merely point to it in a parking lot, same difference) by Life Partner. She has a nose for these things and can calculate, to the minute, when the family appetite for a slowly decaying Douglas fir in our little corner of Winter Solstice reaches its precise tipping point. 

And that moment, my friends, is today. While I do not discriminate against Madison gas station trees, the last few years we’ve gone to a fairly popular spot about 35 minutes out of town that Does All The Work For You. 

However, given my child’s nascent vehicular regurgitation technique, a new barf protection plan had to be put in place. Today, we simply drugged her.

Shortly after administering the recommended dosage – recommended dosage! – of dramamine for humans of El’s shape and size, she begins to slow down. Like, a lot.

When we arrive, she trudges through the parking lot, leaving me concerned about mirth levels, even with copious promises of hot chocolate delivery. I point to a tree. How about this one, I say. “Yeah,” a voice monotones from deep in the recesses of sedation. What about this other one. Do you like it? “Yeah.”

Mental note: my child is agreeable while under the influence of anti-nausea medication. This, however, is not the back and forth repartee I was hoping for during the tree choosing segment of our trip. Still, as El slumps in the wagon, pointing indiscriminately at various evergreens, eyes half open, I think to myself: this is a memory we all get to have. And say the Jewish prayer of thanks for this one.

Years later, we’ll look at a photo of El droopily wiping donut cinnamon and sugar onto her winter coat, remember she was a little bit stoned on, I repeat, the Recommended Dosage, of a popular drug meant to keep you from ralphing, and laugh. 

Finally, we get home, tree on car, and regroup. I don’t adorn the tree myself, but instead take my rightful place on the couch with drink in hand to observe and DJ while mother and daughter place trinkets in just the right armpits of the branches. Each one generates a bit of spirit and memory, including a Grinch, bought to commemorate the day El didn’t barf on the way to get the family tree.

When she could first take part in the decorating process, El would place every single ornament on the same branch. We did not discourage, but instead rearranged the multicolored spheres and baubles when she wasn’t looking. Each year, as her reach grows further, so does her Christmas tree design skills. Now, the little trinkets fan out without so much parental intervention, as the little person who placed them there grasps her world with increasing clarity and precision, holding hands a little less, reaching out a little more towards the things she finds just beyond her fingertips.

I have another sip. The lights are working.

*Not her real name to protect the innocent, but Eleven is what we’ll all use here because she has superpowers and sometimes gets a bloody nose while defeating monsters from another dimension.