By Roberta Steinmetz – December 1988 Parents Place – Nashville, TN
“Now set the tree up in the middle of the window, Al. This year I want it to look really nice,” Mom directed.
“I don’t know what was the matter with where we had it last year,” Dad grumbled. “Bill, get those lights out.”
Bill and Joan opened the box of Christmas ornaments and dug to the bottom for the strings of small lights that went on the tree first. Karen, the baby of the family at 13, sat across the room on the edge of the footstool and ate a chocolate chip cookie. “Karen, don’t just sit and look pretty,” Joan said, glaring at her sister, “you could help too, you know.”
“Grump, grump, grump. I do my share around here.”
Dad paused in the middle of putting one artificial limb into its allotted socket in the tree stem, “Are we going to start already? I’m warning you…” What Dad was warning about remained unspoken as he pinched his finger with a muffled oath threw down the branch in his hand.
“Here, Dad, I’ll help.” Bill picked up the limb and looked at the tree stem searching for an appropriate slot.
“You are a real dodo, Bill,” Joan observed as she untangled a set of lights. “Anybody can see that limb is bigger and had to go on the bottom.”
“Do it yourself if you’re so smart. Mind you own business and let me mind mine.” Bill pulled the mismatched limb from its position and then pulled out all the limbs his father had previously placed on the tree. He arranged the limbs in three stacks of more or less similar sizes and starting at the bottom began to reassemble the tree.
Dad stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room as the three you people struggled with the tree and boxes of Christmas decorations. He shook his head slightly and frowned as he did every year when the tree went up.
“How about some Christmas music?” Mom called busy with dinner preparation in the kitchen behind him.
“Right,” Joan said. “That’s what we need to get into the spirit. Some Christmas music. I’ll get some tapes.”
Karen spoke up, “You always get to pick, Joan. I want to pick the tapes. Dad, can’t I choose?”
“What’s your problem, kid?” Joan poked her sister with a finger as she passed her. “I can certainly pick some Christmas music without help from the monkey section.”
Karen slapped at her sister’s hand and said, “Dad, did you see her? She’s being rotten.”
“Quit it right now. Joan, are you a college student or not? Act your age. Stop picking on Karen.”
“I’m only teasing. That kid sure is sensitive,” Joan said over her shoulder.
Bill stepped behind Joan and reached around her. “I’ll stop the argument, I’ll pick.” He selected a tape and put it in the tape deck. Bing’s voice singing the traditional White Christmas filled the room.
Joan sidestepped a pillow thrown by Karen and went back to her lights. She placed the string on the floor and plugged it into the wall socket. The lights blinked on and off.
Mom came into the room with cups of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies. “Get that blinker out of there, Joan. You know I hate lights that blink. They give me a headache.”
“I kind of like them.”
“I don’t care. When you have a house of your own, you can have all the blinking lights you want. For now, get rid of it.” Mom put the tray on the end table and returned to the kitchen.
Joan made a face and began searching the light strand for the one light that made all the others blink.
Bill stepped back from his job and said, “Well, I did pretty good at that, if I do say so myself.”
In unison his sisters said, “You’ll have to say it yourself, because no one else will say it.” The girls grinned at each other and then at Bill.
“Hey Day, I did my share, right?” Bill asked.
“Don’t bet on it, buddy. Now we do the lights. Joan, are they ready yet?”
“This one’s ready, Dad. I’ll check the other string while you guys get to work on that one.” Joan crouched on the floor with another string of lights in her hands.
The men, for Bill at 19 was a man in looks, if not always in action, took the string of lights and began attaching the individual lights to sections of the tree. It wasn’t long before Dad said, “Not that way, Bill. We go through this every year. You have to separate that plastic hook on the end and put it over the branch and then tighten it up. That way the light stays in place.”
Bill went about the business of attaching his lights exactly as before.
“Ho, Bill, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, Dad, I hear you.”
“Well, then, do it, boy,” Dad yelled. Beads of sweat formed on Dad’s upper lip.
“We better watch it, girls, Dad’s sweating.” Bill said.
“Always a bad sign, huh, Dad?” Joan teased.
“I sure don’t know where your mother and I got such smart alecky kids.”
“Not me, Daddy. I’m not doing anything.” Karen put her arms around her Dad’s neck. “Right? I’m the best kid, huh, Daddy?”
“You’re the baby,” Dad said.
“Sure, Daddy, Karen never does anything wrong. She’s perfect.” Joan’s sarcasm carried to here mother in the kitchen.
“If that tree is ever going to get put up, you people had better get moving.” Mother called from the kitchen.
“I hate this job,” Dad grumbled. “You stay out there and supervise… next year I’m going to supervise.”
“I hear you, honey. The sooner you get on with it, the quicker it will be done.”
The second strand of lights went on a little smoother than the first, but the grousing continue. The tree crew was not having fun.
“That’s my contribution,” Dad said. “Give me a coup of that chocolate.” Dad plopped himself down in the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table.
“Me too. I did my share,” Bill got a cup of cocoa and joined his father on the sofa.
“You fellows better take your feet off Mom’s table, if you know what’s good for you,” Joan warned.
“Why’d you quit?” Karen wanted to know. “We aren’t even done yet. I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Now if that’s not typical. We haven’t done the dishes in five years that she hasn’t had to go to the bathroom. She kills me.”
Secretly Dad agreed with Joan, but didn’t say anything. Bill, however, was not so kind. “That’s what I say, Karen,“ Bill yelled.
Mother came in to check on the progress of the decorating committee. “Get your feet off that table, you two. How are we coming along in here?”
“What’s this we stuff?” Dad asked. “You haven’t done a thing.”
“I’m supervising,” Mother answered in a dignified tone. “As we all know, I am the best supervisor in the family.”
“That’s my job next year,” Dad replied.
“Rewind that tape and let’s hear old Bing again, Bill. Com’on girls, let’s show these men how this is done.” Mom opened a special box. It contained ornaments that all three of the youngsters had made through the years. There was a red yarn Santa made by Joan when she was in the first grade and a big construction paper “B” made by Bill when he was 10. Bill was not her arty child. Karen had contributed quite a few decorations in her 13 years beginning with a cookie shaped angel made in kindergarten and a cross stitch drummer boy made last year. Mom handled each one as if it were made of gold and placed them carefully on the tree.
“Oh, Mom, remember the year you made all the pinecone owls. We over did it that time. We must have had 30 or so on the tree.” Joan giggled at the memory.
“I was on a roll,” Mom said. “Once I started, I couldn’t quit making those things.” Mother picked up two owls that had survived a decade of packing and unpacking and repacking.
“I’ll find a good spot for them, Mom.” Karen took the owls and hid them in the branches of the tree.
“Not there, Karen. You can’t see them.” Joan repositioned the owls.
“Some people think I can’t do anything right. I’ve a good mind to let her do it herself.”
“Girls, that’s enough. If we fight much more, Christmas will be here before we ever get this chore done.”
“That’s right,” Bill put his two cents in from the sofa. “How about the manger scene? We haven’t set that up yet.”
“Everybody knows that goes under the tree and is last,” Karen said disgustedly.
Bing was swinging into the 12 Days of Christmas about this time… Three French hens… Two calling birds, and a partridge in a pear tree.
“Ugh, I hate that song. Remember when we sang that in ensemble in high school. Awful.” Joan sputtered.
“I don’t like it either,” Dad said.
“I think it’s lovely,” Mom said. She found the place in the carol and joined Bing… “Six geese a laying… five gold rings. La la la la.”
“Please! Must you?” Dad put his fingers in his ears and missed the end of the carol.
The ornaments were all placed and pronounced perfect by Karen.
“Now for the tinsel. You people just get back in here,” Mother ordered the four members of her family who were headed for the door. “We are almost done. If everyone gets a handful of tinsel, we’ll be finished in no time.” Bing began to croon Silent Night.
Five people stood around the tree to place the tinsel. Dad and Bill, despite pleas from Mom to put each strand on separately, threw their tinsel on. Joan and Mother proceeded more carefully. Karen decided that the bottom half of the tree wasn’t getting enough attention and knelt to take care of that section.
“Go get a sheet, Joan. Karen, get the nativity. We are almost finished.”
The family sat on the floor and unpacked the nativity. Each of them positioned a figure or two and repositioned the ones the others had placed. They turned off the overhead lights and sat quietly with only the tree lights on.
Finally, Dad sighed and said, “That job’s done for another year.”
“But, don’t forget, Dad. We get to take it down in three weeks,” Bill grinned.
“You don’t have to remind me, kid.”
Joan said, “In class one day we were talking about family traditions and I couldn’t think of any. I guess putting up the tree together is one of ours, wouldn’t you say?”
Karen nodded.
Mom agreed. “We have a family tradition. We fight putting up the tree and we fight taking it down.” They all laughed.
Joan, Karen, and Bill began to sing loudly, Tradition, from “Fiddler on the Roof” as they danced around the room.
Tradition.
“Now set the tree up in the middle of the window, Al. This year I want it to look really nice,” Mom directed.
“I don’t know what was the matter with where we had it last year,” Dad grumbled. “Bill, get those lights out.”
Bill and Joan opened the box of Christmas ornaments and dug to the bottom for the strings of small lights that went on the tree first. Karen, the baby of the family at 13, sat across the room on the edge of the footstool and ate a chocolate chip cookie. “Karen, don’t just sit and look pretty,” Joan said, glaring at her sister, “you could help too, you know.”
“Grump, grump, grump. I do my share around here.”
Dad paused in the middle of putting one artificial limb into its allotted socket in the tree stem, “Are we going to start already? I’m warning you…” What Dad was warning about remained unspoken as he pinched his finger with a muffled oath threw down the branch in his hand.
“Here, Dad, I’ll help.” Bill picked up the limb and looked at the tree stem searching for an appropriate slot.
“You are a real dodo, Bill,” Joan observed as she untangled a set of lights. “Anybody can see that limb is bigger and had to go on the bottom.”
“Do it yourself if you’re so smart. Mind you own business and let me mind mine.” Bill pulled the mismatched limb from its position and then pulled out all the limbs his father had previously placed on the tree. He arranged the limbs in three stacks of more or less similar sizes and starting at the bottom began to reassemble the tree.
Dad stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room as the three you people struggled with the tree and boxes of Christmas decorations. He shook his head slightly and frowned as he did every year when the tree went up.
“How about some Christmas music?” Mom called busy with dinner preparation in the kitchen behind him.
“Right,” Joan said. “That’s what we need to get into the spirit. Some Christmas music. I’ll get some tapes.”
Karen spoke up, “You always get to pick, Joan. I want to pick the tapes. Dad, can’t I choose?”
“What’s your problem, kid?” Joan poked her sister with a finger as she passed her. “I can certainly pick some Christmas music without help from the monkey section.”
Karen slapped at her sister’s hand and said, “Dad, did you see her? She’s being rotten.”
“Quit it right now. Joan, are you a college student or not? Act your age. Stop picking on Karen.”
“I’m only teasing. That kid sure is sensitive,” Joan said over her shoulder.
Bill stepped behind Joan and reached around her. “I’ll stop the argument, I’ll pick.” He selected a tape and put it in the tape deck. Bing’s voice singing the traditional White Christmas filled the room.
Joan sidestepped a pillow thrown by Karen and went back to her lights. She placed the string on the floor and plugged it into the wall socket. The lights blinked on and off.
Mom came into the room with cups of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies. “Get that blinker out of there, Joan. You know I hate lights that blink. They give me a headache.”
“I kind of like them.”
“I don’t care. When you have a house of your own, you can have all the blinking lights you want. For now, get rid of it.” Mom put the tray on the end table and returned to the kitchen.
Joan made a face and began searching the light strand for the one light that made all the others blink.
Bill stepped back from his job and said, “Well, I did pretty good at that, if I do say so myself.”
In unison his sisters said, “You’ll have to say it yourself, because no one else will say it.” The girls grinned at each other and then at Bill.
“Hey Day, I did my share, right?” Bill asked.
“Don’t bet on it, buddy. Now we do the lights. Joan, are they ready yet?”
“This one’s ready, Dad. I’ll check the other string while you guys get to work on that one.” Joan crouched on the floor with another string of lights in her hands.
The men, for Bill at 19 was a man in looks, if not always in action, took the string of lights and began attaching the individual lights to sections of the tree. It wasn’t long before Dad said, “Not that way, Bill. We go through this every year. You have to separate that plastic hook on the end and put it over the branch and then tighten it up. That way the light stays in place.”
Bill went about the business of attaching his lights exactly as before.
“Ho, Bill, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, Dad, I hear you.”
“Well, then, do it, boy,” Dad yelled. Beads of sweat formed on Dad’s upper lip.
“We better watch it, girls, Dad’s sweating.” Bill said.
“Always a bad sign, huh, Dad?” Joan teased.
“I sure don’t know where your mother and I got such smart alecky kids.”
“Not me, Daddy. I’m not doing anything.” Karen put her arms around her Dad’s neck. “Right? I’m the best kid, huh, Daddy?”
“You’re the baby,” Dad said.
“Sure, Daddy, Karen never does anything wrong. She’s perfect.” Joan’s sarcasm carried to here mother in the kitchen.
“If that tree is ever going to get put up, you people had better get moving.” Mother called from the kitchen.
“I hate this job,” Dad grumbled. “You stay out there and supervise… next year I’m going to supervise.”
“I hear you, honey. The sooner you get on with it, the quicker it will be done.”
The second strand of lights went on a little smoother than the first, but the grousing continue. The tree crew was not having fun.
“That’s my contribution,” Dad said. “Give me a coup of that chocolate.” Dad plopped himself down in the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table.
“Me too. I did my share,” Bill got a cup of cocoa and joined his father on the sofa.
“You fellows better take your feet off Mom’s table, if you know what’s good for you,” Joan warned.
“Why’d you quit?” Karen wanted to know. “We aren’t even done yet. I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Now if that’s not typical. We haven’t done the dishes in five years that she hasn’t had to go to the bathroom. She kills me.”
Secretly Dad agreed with Joan, but didn’t say anything. Bill, however, was not so kind. “That’s what I say, Karen,“ Bill yelled.
Mother came in to check on the progress of the decorating committee. “Get your feet off that table, you two. How are we coming along in here?”
“What’s this we stuff?” Dad asked. “You haven’t done a thing.”
“I’m supervising,” Mother answered in a dignified tone. “As we all know, I am the best supervisor in the family.”
“That’s my job next year,” Dad replied.
“Rewind that tape and let’s hear old Bing again, Bill. Com’on girls, let’s show these men how this is done.” Mom opened a special box. It contained ornaments that all three of the youngsters had made through the years. There was a red yarn Santa made by Joan when she was in the first grade and a big construction paper “B” made by Bill when he was 10. Bill was not her arty child. Karen had contributed quite a few decorations in her 13 years beginning with a cookie shaped angel made in kindergarten and a cross stitch drummer boy made last year. Mom handled each one as if it were made of gold and placed them carefully on the tree.
“Oh, Mom, remember the year you made all the pinecone owls. We over did it that time. We must have had 30 or so on the tree.” Joan giggled at the memory.
“I was on a roll,” Mom said. “Once I started, I couldn’t quit making those things.” Mother picked up two owls that had survived a decade of packing and unpacking and repacking.
“I’ll find a good spot for them, Mom.” Karen took the owls and hid them in the branches of the tree.
“Not there, Karen. You can’t see them.” Joan repositioned the owls.
“Some people think I can’t do anything right. I’ve a good mind to let her do it herself.”
“Girls, that’s enough. If we fight much more, Christmas will be here before we ever get this chore done.”
“That’s right,” Bill put his two cents in from the sofa. “How about the manger scene? We haven’t set that up yet.”
“Everybody knows that goes under the tree and is last,” Karen said disgustedly.
Bing was swinging into the 12 Days of Christmas about this time… Three French hens… Two calling birds, and a partridge in a pear tree.
“Ugh, I hate that song. Remember when we sang that in ensemble in high school. Awful.” Joan sputtered.
“I don’t like it either,” Dad said.
“I think it’s lovely,” Mom said. She found the place in the carol and joined Bing… “Six geese a laying… five gold rings. La la la la.”
“Please! Must you?” Dad put his fingers in his ears and missed the end of the carol.
The ornaments were all placed and pronounced perfect by Karen.
“Now for the tinsel. You people just get back in here,” Mother ordered the four members of her family who were headed for the door. “We are almost done. If everyone gets a handful of tinsel, we’ll be finished in no time.” Bing began to croon Silent Night.
Five people stood around the tree to place the tinsel. Dad and Bill, despite pleas from Mom to put each strand on separately, threw their tinsel on. Joan and Mother proceeded more carefully. Karen decided that the bottom half of the tree wasn’t getting enough attention and knelt to take care of that section.
“Go get a sheet, Joan. Karen, get the nativity. We are almost finished.”
The family sat on the floor and unpacked the nativity. Each of them positioned a figure or two and repositioned the ones the others had placed. They turned off the overhead lights and sat quietly with only the tree lights on.
Finally, Dad sighed and said, “That job’s done for another year.”
“But, don’t forget, Dad. We get to take it down in three weeks,” Bill grinned.
“You don’t have to remind me, kid.”
Joan said, “In class one day we were talking about family traditions and I couldn’t think of any. I guess putting up the tree together is one of ours, wouldn’t you say?”
Karen nodded.
Mom agreed. “We have a family tradition. We fight putting up the tree and we fight taking it down.” They all laughed.
Joan, Karen, and Bill began to sing loudly, Tradition, from “Fiddler on the Roof” as they danced around the room.
Tradition.
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