“You’re just as focused taking down the tree as putting it up,” my husband observed this afternoon. I hadn’t considered the matter before, but he was right. There’s a lot that goes into taking down a tree. For instance, there’s the matter of boing-y-ness.
This is the second year we’ve had this artificial tree. Had our old tree not been falling apart from needle to branch, we would not have replaced it. Although I looked for years for a tree I liked as well as our old one, I never found one. A striking difference is the new tree has skinny branches. Plenty of foliage, just skinny-diameter branches. An alarming number of the ornaments I hung on the new tree the way I’d always hung ornaments before, went boing-ing off into space last year when I released the recently adorned branches.
I knew about that tendency this year, and pinched the ornament hooks tightly enough to the branches that ornaments didn’t fly all over as I decorated. Regrettably, I forgot that a tree that launches ornaments into space when it’s being decorated has just as much potential to launch when I go to pluck those tightly hooked ornaments down again, especially if they’re over my head. The dog looked about as startled as the Scarecrow and Dorothy when the tree started flinging its adornments today.
I did improve my technique for ornament removal in one way this year: I employed bags. Into the sparkly, silver, and—most importantly—opaque bag, I dropped the soft ornaments. The ones that this year, unlike years past, the dog regarded as quite possibly dog toys. One in particular, a big soft moose hanging at the bottom of the tree, held great appeal for Rascal. He kept checking on it, there under the tree, thinking he did so in stealth mode. It didn’t occur to him that the sound of all those fragile ornaments crashing against each other as he barged through them to get to the moose might be a tip-off. The moose was the first ornament removed from the tree and tossed into the silver bag.
The rest of the softies joined the moose today. Usually, I just make a pile of the softies when the tree comes down, but there was too much doggy interest in them this year. Hence, the opaque bag, which worked like a charm. Rascal has no interest in the ornaments that are unbreakable but not soft, so it’s okay to pile them; no bag necessary. I did use another bag for the little ornaments from the top of the tree—the ones most likely to attempt flight. I often needed both hands to maintain control of these small-but-flighties, and the bag made that possible without a lot of climbing up and down the stool to set down ornaments. Obvious, really, but unnecessary with the old tree.
Taking down a Christmas tree goes a lot faster than decorating it. Decorating it takes days. For one thing, we put lots of ornaments on each tree. But even if we only used a few, putting them up requires remembering the provenance of each one. Mom gave us the tiny wooden bird feeder. Mrs. Jaynes, her parents’ friend, the glittery gold bird. Some ornaments are from childhood, some from other phases of adulthood. Each one evokes memories, whether being added to or taken from the tree.
Then all those memories need to be packed away for next year. That’s where the soft and otherwise unbreakable ornaments come in: they’re packing material. Bubble wrap and tissue paper help out here and there, but mainly it’s the nonfragile ornaments. This makes good use of materials and works well enough to see the containers of adornments safely to their storage downstairs.
One last refinement to the taking-down technique evolved in recent years: the preparation of a starter packet. Into this packet, which is the last item placed in the last storage container, go the seven ornaments I’ll use first when I put up this tree next year. I always start with these. That’s how the ritual begins. I used to spend time each year, searching for them among the general population of ornaments. This way is better. Calmer. There’s a rightness to it.
So the tree is down. The ornaments are stowed. The magi, gifts in hand, have reached the stable. The babe is born. Chrismastide is complete. Epiphany is upon us.
7 January 2022