My Fake Fir

Tinsel is shiny, pretty and cut into perfect bite-size strands. How could you NOT want to eat it? I googled "tinsel" out of curiosity just now. I thought it must have some other use. According to Wikipedia (which I realize is a collection of sinister untruths but I'm not a deep digger), tinsel has no other purpose but to decorate Christmas trees and beautify pet vomit.

We don't have tinsel on our tree. Firstly because we have dogs. Secondly, because not even tinsel could make our tree look good.

As a kid, I remember nothing but pretty trees in our living room at Christmas. We always had real ones. The crisp, clean smell, the magical feeling it created when it was decorated and ready for Santa. As an adult, I still appreciate real trees but I hate the upkeep. Besides that, I feel bad seeing all the dead ones dumped on garbage piles after the holidays, still clinging to their last bits of garland. Believe it or not, there are companies that will bring a live tree to your house (roots and all) and pick it up to replant after the holidays. I love that idea - but not for me, because if it's green and leafy, I'll kill it. If I got a live Christmas tree on Dec 24th, it would be kindling by morning. I suck at plants. I'm better at dogs.

So, back to my ugly-ass tree. "Ugly" could be forgivable if it was a real tree. Real trees are expected to have imperfections and sometimes suffer from things like needle loss, root rot and brown spots (hey, we've all been there). But I would expect my machine-manufactured tree to display all the stereotypically perfect elements of a textbook Christmas tree. A fake tree should scream Norman Rockwell. Unless you go fishing at the end of season sale and refuse to spend more than 40 bucks, tops.

Well, you get what you pay for. And it's never how it looks on the box by the way. The picture on the box depicted a lovely couple sipping their hot cocoa and admiring their beautiful, lush Christmas tree, pre-lit with twinkling white lights. What we found ourselves with was a wobbly metal post with sparse, unnaturally green spokes thrusting out at odd angles. And a clunky electrical cord snaking up through the branches. No hot cocoa. No turtlenecks. No Norman Rockwell moment. And it's hard to class up an ugly tree. Especially when your ornaments include a flamingo in a tutu, the Pillsbury doughboy and a plastic pickle.

It's like beer goggles in a bar. In order for the ugly to appear attractive, the right elements must converge at once. Booze, obviously. But also, the room should be dark, you should be at least six feet away and it would be helpful if you had cataracts. Unlike the beer goggle hook-up though, this tree is sticking around all month. Nat Lauzon can be heard weekdays from 9-1 on Virgin Radio and wishes you a non-ugly holiday season.