(Not) A Norman Rockwell Experience

Patience was not my father’s middle name. He was easily frustrated when anything did not progress forward in a straight line. He expected brevity, clarity and flawlessness in all things.

And so Christmastime was particularly challenging for him. There were toys to assemble from poorly written directions. Batteries were not included. Inclement weather slowed the outdoor decorating process from efficiency. And then there was the artificial tree, which required him climbing a too small pull down staircase to then navigate a too large box to squeeze through a barely wide enough opening.

Erecting the Christmas tree in my house was hardly a Norman Rockwell experience.

Putting up the tree was the chore that eroded my father’s spirit. He grumbled how the color coded branches had a micron of paint on them such that only those with 20/10 vision could discern between them. The stem of the tree was structured from pine which loosed with age. It caused the tree to list. And the piece de resistance were the lights—which no matter how meticulously were put away the year before required precision-like fine motor skills to disentangle and which never blinked to 100% capacity as they had 12 months earlier.

My father ranted why couldn’t a Christmas tree be structured like an umbrella? He pondered out loud  why couldn’t the branches be pre-wired with lights that did not fail? And then, shaking his head in disgust, he would conclude with these immortal and rhetorical  words: Who was the God damned genius engineer who designed this debacle?

And four Christmases ago I felt melancholy as I assembled my first 2 piece pre-lit tree that opened like an umbrella. I was sad that my father had not lived long enough to see Christmas design at its best.

And last Friday evening as I sat on my living room couch, admiring the fire in the fireplace, the glowing candles on the mantle, and the glory of my pre-lit wonder, I noticed that the lights at the apex of my tree--a tree that had already experienced a blip in the lighting a week before—was shining more brightly than it should have been. And then all the lights at the top went poof—and then black.

I could not believe my eyes.

And then I heard my father’s words with clarity, brevity and flawlessness: Who was the God damned genius engineer who designed this tree?

And while I am sad my father is not still with us, I am happy that he did not live long enough to see that a 2 piece umbrella-like pre-lit tree would not have been a  panacea to his Christmas woes. Nothing in this life is guaranteed to proceed forward  in a  straight line. Nothing is perfect. And patience is a virtue—a God damned poorly designed virtue.