First Christmas

by E. Marmer
posted Dec 25, 2017

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

This is not the story of the birth of Jesus, nor of a small child’s introduction to the wonders of Santa Claus.  No, this is the story of a New York Jewess of advanced middle age (me), finding herself for the first time at the very center of Christmas, or, at least, its production.  You may ask, how did this happen? It was the natural, yet, to the uninitiated newbie (again, me), wholly unanticipated consequence of my having gotten a job at the local garden center.

I began my employment last May, when the profusion of geraniums and petunias could not possibly have prepared me for what was ahead. And while, even in that fragrant, humid season, one of my co-workers waxed rhapsodic about how all the tables of green plants and flowers would be replaced come late November by rows of Christmas trees, and how all the yard hands (of which I was one) would be warming their hands to an outdoor fire, as snow gently fell, and family after family happily drove away with a Christmas tree, leaving the yard hands’ pockets bulging with tips, I just couldn’t grasp it. I was too preoccupied trying to understand how my fantasy of arranging flowers, dreamily pruning perennials, and dispensing gardening advice had turned into the reality of dragging wet and muddy hose, pushing heavy carts of inventory, and struggling to remember the names of annuals I’d only first heard of while the customers looked at me like I was some sort of idiot.

When the autumn season, with its mums, pumpkins, cornstalks and cabbages, drew to a close, I was sent home by the boss for a short hiatus.  He told me, “Rest up and get ready. You’re going to six days a week starting the day after Thanksgiving.”  Actually, he said it in his Australian accent, which made the oncoming season sound like a wild, survivalist bush adventure. That was my first clue that something pretty intense was bearing down on me. I began to get nervous.

Dutifully, if with trepidation, I returned on the appointed day, to find the nursery had been utterly transformed.  The indoor store’s inventory of decorative reindeer, Saint Nicks, snowy owls, elves, sparkly ornaments, candles, poinsettias and pine cones, artificial trees, tree skirts, and tasteful hostess gifts were arrayed so densely and so tantalizingly, that it was as if the North Pole and Santa’s workshop had been transported to this one spot about 50 miles North of New York City. And, as I had been foretold, yet couldn’t truly visualize until now when I took it all in in real time, in place of all the racks that had once held row after row of green plants stood hundreds of fragrant trees, in formation like ready foot soldiers.  In front of these were plywood tables laden with every size fresh wreath imaginable, along with a bounty of mantle pieces, centerpieces, seasonal planters, swags, garlands, bunches of evergreens, roping and beautifully hand decorated wreaths such as I’d never before seen. For why would I, Jewish daughter, mother, matriarch-in-training, have ever browsed around garden centers for this occasion?

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

My initial awe and delight at such an array were quickly tamped down by my understanding that not only was I to learn all about this inventory and sell it, but I was also responsible for keeping the inventory coming.  Thus, while the initial display of Christmas goods had been prepared in my absence, I, the Jewess, would now be creating replacement bunches of Magnolia leaves, Western Cedar, Frasier fir and Juniper, decorating fresh wreaths, setting up, modifying and replenishing the displays in a beautiful and tantalizing manner as things sold, and creating the occasional seasonal planter or centerpiece. I did all those things, even while I counseled the Christian or secular buying public on the differences in needle retention and ornament support among Frasier, Concolor, Douglas, Noble and Mediterranean Silver firs. I even created our signature display for the driving public, a Christmas explosion for the entrance to our grounds.

Here it is!

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

Most remarkably of all, I went into people’s homes and strung up their trees with lights. This activity made me understand something – decorating Christmas trees is exhausting, and rife with tension.  If I hadn’t already deduced, from observing over and over families or couples trying to reach agreement over trees, wreaths and other decorative items, how thin was the boundary between happy-making, comforting ritual and disgusted, resentful acrimony, the lighting of the trees brought this home.  Here was I, a supposedly dispassionate professional, and the sighing that came forth out of my mouth as I twisted lights around uncooperative branches and desperately tried to keep the wires untangled was something to behold.  My coworker-mentor gently chided me: how could I have spaced the lights so well on one part of the tree, and put too many on this other section? Fortunately, I had no emotional history with him, so I had not the least desire to smash his face in. I could only guess how many conflicts would arise between loving partners when it came to hanging the ornaments! Yet, I persevered, and did my fair share of lighting two towering trees, a thirteen-footer and a nine-footer, to the immense satisfaction of their purchasers.

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

Fifty percent of these 1200 lights are mine, baby! (We were requested to make sure the tree was densely lit, and we obliged!)

Perhaps the stress factor is algorithmically related to the height and girth of the tree.  Certainly, the time factor is…it took four hours for two people to light that thirteen-foot tree!  If you’re going over six feet, do yourself a favor and spare your relationships.  Call in the professionals!

In addition to learning that garden centers are really at the center of the Christmas spectacle, I learned a few other things as well. One is that it really can be sweet to witness a family buy a Christmas tree together (except when one of the kids is out of sorts and whining about how he or she never gets input into the selection, or when one of the adults is a cranky, never-can-be-pleased pain in the ass).  A young child’s glee while running about the trees, and his or her barely contained excitement when the very best tree has been selected are truly contagious.  And it is both an honor and charming fun to be allowed in as a discreet helper-observer, by the couple who have figured out over the years which one of them needs to be the head Christmas tree selector, and to watch the appointed one (self-appointed, usually) stride around with the measurement pole while the other secretly rolls eyes at me.

Another thing I learned is that there is no end to the creativity of those manufacturing Christmas goods.  No matter how lovely or unique a decorative item is, there is always a new one waiting to be fashioned and presented.  It is, quite simply, very easy to spend money at Christmas. The same people who wanted discounts for sixty dollars worth of perennials in July plopped down hundreds for Christmas goods in December without a moment’s hesitation. I also learned that the logical end to becoming infatuated with tiny Christmas miniatures is a whole village of the damned things, which of course has to be dismantled and stored every year.  I saw such a display in a home I visited on my one of tree lighting missions. That is why I stopped at the gumdrop factory (with moving gumdrop conveyor belt!) and pond with gliding swans (propelled into figure eights by magnets under the pond; how irresistable!), though I really regretted missing out on the opportunity to buy the ski mountain complete with moving skiers.

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

And finally, I learned that keeping a Christmas tree requires checking the water in the stand on a daily basis, unless you want the thing to dry up and look awful, or worse, create a fire hazard.  What – A – Pain! I finally figured out that with a PVC pipe and funnel, one could keep the tree watered without the tedious work of removing the tree skirt and braving all the scraping branches and needles at the tree’s base. I learned this of course because I succumbed to the persuasion of one of my coworkers, a plant lover like me. “Get a tree!  Look at that cute tree! No one will buy that little fat tree!” What a sucker I was!

E. Marmer | Free to Navel Gaze

Here it is in the corner of my family room, having required the rearrangement of all the furniture.

Tree acquisition, decorating and care is right up there with changing the dishes for Passover, fasting for Yom Kippur or peeling, grating and frying up five bags of potatoes for Chanukah latkes without anybody helping you.  I guess we all have our burdensome traditions that, over the years, give us the markers of time, and, thankfully, scores of sweet, or even bittersweet family memories to fill it.  All I know is, having been at the eye of the Christmas hurricane I shall never be the same.  And thank goodness for that!  Something about the joy and irrationality of the Christmas pageantry is a wonderful affirmation of humanity’s wacky elements, and I’m so glad I was there to see it.

Merry Christmas!

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