The Christmas tree

I finally went out and chose the Christmas tree yesterday. I go to Fiesta Farms (200 Christie Street) because they have a?phenomenal?choice and I love the way they display the trees. They hang them so you can see the shape all the way around.?And John or Dino will give you chapter and verse on the qualities of each species.?For the past few years I’ve gotten a Noble Fir which is a glorious tree, wonderful shape, dark velvety leaves and a scent that just fills the whole house.?And they ?deliver it when they say they will.?

When we had the garden dining room added on to the house, I made sure our wonderful architect had a place for the Christmas tree. It’s the one part of Christmas I throw myself into: I love the whole process of dusting off the ornaments some of which have survived kids, cats and now grandchildren helping to decorate. Others gifts from the days when we had decorating parties.

The grandchildren have gotten to the age when this is not a big deal anymore but I’m going to try and get the boys to put at least one ornament on the tree when they visit tomorrow. When my kids were young it was just part of the annual ritual to spend an afternoon decorating (which led to the decorating party).?Hard to get grandchildren to hop to in quite the same way.

I load up the tree with lights and from Monday on we will turn them on for dinner and do it every day until January 6 and then poof out and over with. But during this period of the light holding back the darkness comes always as a surprise at how very satisfying an overloaded tree can be.

Now I’m doing this mostly alone it’s getting a little too tasteful. ?I’ll try to make it look as over-decorated, like a piece of junk jewelry, ?something wonderfully vulgar—an object to spend time admiring with a really good glass of wine.