How to Fix a Christmas Tree
Author’s note: This post is likely to offend just about everyone. When it comes to Christmas, I admit I am, how shall we put it, a little simple.
At Christmastime I should keep in my pockets a few red and green Santa Clause ornaments. I would know what must be done when I came upon trees decorated fastidiously in non-Christmassy color schemes. The following trees can offend the Christmas purist:
- Trees with more-elegant-than-thou attitudes
- Strict color schemes – only silver and blue, all white, all gold
- Mauve anything
- Any tree in a bank lobby
- Aloof indifference to bourgeois traditions
- Apparent disdain for normal children
- Bereft of spiritualism, nostalgia or whimsy
- A tree next to a gas-fueled fireplace being decorated, slowly, pensively, by a barefoot Gwyneth Paltrow draped all in white, holding an oversized glass of red wine and listening to Michael Bublé’s pianist oh-so-casually play her white, baby grand piano (she doesn’t even know who let him in) next to a crystal bowl of fresh lemons while pretending not to notice him
When I encounter such an affront to the spirit of Christmas I should secretly hang a red and green Santa at the North Pole on the tree, right in front.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.