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Ralph Gardner Jr: Time For The Tree

The 2019 Gardner Christmas tree
Ralph Gardner Jr.

We have this road trip game we play in our family that I like to think we invented – actually my wife invented it – but lots of other families probably play it, too.

I’m not sure we’ve even given it a name. Call it the “Christmas tree game.” It’s a holiday variation on counting cows – where you get credit for all the cows on your side of the car. If you pass a cemetery you lose all your cows, but only if the opposing team calls out the cemetery.

In the Christmas tree game you get credit if you’re the first, shouting “Tree!”, to spot Christmas trees being transported on top of cars. If in your haste you call a tree in the distance but it turns out to be one of those rooftop cargo containers you lose one of your trees.

There’s no equivalent of a cemetery that wipes out all your trees and the game ends when you get bored or exhausted.

We didn’t play the game this year for several reasons. We didn’t head upstate the day after Thanksgiving, as we normally do, when, it turns out, a surprising number of people buy their trees. Sometimes two of them.

However, my younger daughter texted us that she played the game by herself in her car as she drove to work. I’m not sure whether this is reason to feel sad at the waning cohesion of our family or happy that she’s maintaining tradition.

Another disorienting change that occurred this holiday season is that we got our country Christmas tree at a new tree farm. (We have one for city and one for the country; my wife picked up the city tree during a shopping trip to her native Long Island.)

Our regular provider is running out of trees and stopped replanting years ago. I liked the place because it’s on a windswept plain amid farms and fields just northwest of Kinderhook, NY. Except for the Catskills rising in the distance, the topography is more reminiscent of the Midwest than the Hudson Valley.

This particular tree farm was also appealing because you received a candy cane with purchase. My wife got embarrassed when I requested my candy cane but it’s part of the tradition. I also enjoy the occasional candy cane.

A bone of contention between my spouse and me is whether candy canes qualify as Christmas tree ornaments; I say they do, she says they don’t.

Also, I don’t see why you should be disqualified from receiving the rewards and experiencing the joys of childhood just because you grow up. One could argue that those pleasures are more than supplanted by more sophisticated adult indulgences. I don’t disagree. I just don’t believe that, health concerns aside, one should be forced to forsake any excuse to indulge.

Goodness on top of goodness is a good thing.

The Christmas tree farm where we got this year’s tree is located in Claverack, NY. And while the landscape may have lacked some of that appealing Andrew Wyeth bleakness, it compensated by having one of those tree-netting devices that makes the tree more compact and easier to transport.

Our former Christmas tree farm didn’t offer that courtesy, which was something of a hassle, especially since we often bought both our trees there, taking the second one back to the city either on top or in the back of our SUV.

Driving a tree on top of a car for two hours down the Taconic State Parkway – something our Christmas tree farm owner counseled us against, arguing the headwinds would dry the tree out -- may be the reason some of our trees started to shed their needles well before Christmas morning. But I’m not sure.

I prefer to think that while some trees lose their needles within weeks, while others remain robust well into February, is a mystery well beyond the modest powers of humankind to comprehend.

My wife, as you may have gathered, takes the lead when it comes to decorating the tree. Hence her spirited and overruling disapproval when I attempt to add candy canes for that final holiday touch.

When I was growing up our tree, while tall and lovely, wasn’t a masterpiece of decoration. My father used the same lights and balls every year, as well as that lead tinsel that was phased out after the 1960s for fear that it contributed to lead poisoning in children. I can’t say I’m heartbroken over the loss of old-fashioned tinsel. I don’t believe any self-respecting Christmas tree need lean on the crutch of dripping metallic streamers. One’s ornaments should be statement enough.

Another bone of contention between my wife and me is colored vs. white lights. She refuses to allow colored lights, let alone blinking colored lights anywhere near her tree.

My feeling is that Christmas trees can run the risk of becoming too tasteful. The best-decorated trees are those that tread a fine line between tasteful and tacky. Hence the reason that when my wife isn’t looking, I’ll enhance the tree’s luster by adding a candy cane here and there and hope she doesn’t notice. As I do every year.

Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found at ralphgardner.com

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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