I was working on the computer this past weekend when I heard a sudden “thud” upstairs in the living room.
As I ran up the steps to see what had happened, I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I knew what had fallen to make that sound.
When I came around the corner and reached the living room, I found I was unfortunately right about the origin of that dull thud on the wooden floor.
My beautiful Christmas tree had fallen. With all of its lights and ornaments on it.
And it was laying partially across the living room sofa.
Thank goodness it wasn’t plugged in and all lit up when it decided to go horizental.
But still it was totally surreal.
As in: my eyes saw what had happened, but it was not registering in my brain.
I have always had a love/hate relationships with Christmas trees. I love the way they look after the decorations and lights have been lovingly placed in its branches, but I hate the mechanics of getting it secured in the Christmas tree stand. It’s one of those annual holiday traditions that has a beautiful outcome but what you have to do to get it that way has never been easy for me.
I was thinking of this while I stared at the fallen tree. I’ve heard of this happening but in all my years of putting up Christmas trees, one has never actually fallen to the floor. They have tilted. They have been bigger than the space they are supposed to fit it. All previous trees, once secured, had obediently stayed in their stands.
Plus I figured I was good because this year my tree, with the help of my son, had been in its stand and upright for almost two weeks.
I swear I just stood there for a few minutes just to see if the tree would right itself back up.
And when that didn’t happen, I felt the tears roll down my cheeks.
Oh comfort and joy, where are you this season? It was too much. How was I supposed to right this thing back up?
I could have called a neighbor or a friend but I thought that the whole thing would sound ridiculous. Come on, I said to myself. Get it together. Don’t take this as some bad Christmas omen, think instead of the big holiday picture and how it’s only a tree and you’re lucky to have one. It could be a hundred million times worse. I’m not say that to be dramatic. I know that It really could be.
So I took a deep breath, started picking ornaments up off the floor, throwing a few curse words around, and then grabbed a broom to sweep the pine needles up which happened to be everywhere.
As I cleaned up I began to see the humor in the whole thing. Yeah, it was one messy situation but it was fixable.
My Christmas Tree is now standing tall and a little better for the rearrangement of ornaments and lights.
Even though I wasn’t laughing in the beginning, I can now see how funny this whole thing is when I look back at it.
A little laughter always goes a long way to helping us survive the rough and tumble and unexpected bumps of life, right?
I hope this doesn’t happen to you but if it has, I would love to hear about it and then we can share some laughs about the ridiculous things that momentarily throw us off during the holidays!
Cheers!
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