Spring Bulbs and Christmas

Spring Bulbs and Christmas

We went shopping for spring bulbs to plant.  Imagine our surprise to find bulbs hidden behind Christmas trees.  In October.  Before Halloween.  Mixed in with the Christmas bling were witches and goblins, fall wreaths, pumpkins, hay bales, turkey platters, holiday dishes  and everything else one can imagine for the big three-Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Seeing all the holiday goodies caused my mind to wander away from bulbs that will not be seen until spring.  It is much easier to get caught up in what the eyes can see at the moment.  Waiting for months and months to see those flowers appear seems far, far away.  Holiday stuff seems right here right now.

As I walked among the perfectly dressed trees, I thought about how much I enjoy decorating trees for the holidays.  However, we have to get past all the work of putting the tree together first.  For years we visited a tree farm and cut our own.  In the field the chosen tree looked perfect.  Just the right height and diameter.  Perfect from any angle.  My husband usually remarked that it was a little big, but I pretended not to hear those words.  I hate to say it, but he was right almost every time.  One year we cut our tree, placed it in the bed of the truck and headed home.  Friends had their tree in the truck, too.  Imagine our surprise when we found only one tree in the truck.  They do blow out it seems.  I think we determined it was their tree not ours that was  lost.  Funny how that happened.

Dragging the tree into the house and standing it up was never the best part of the whole experience.  Especially when the tree took up half the room and doubled over on the ceiling with the top pointing to the floor.  Kinda hard to put a pretty topping on a tree that has a bent top.  Furniture needed new placement, too.  Eventually we decided to go with a fake tree.  Or artificial.  Even those can be tricky to put together.

Of course, the next part of the tree thing is an absolute nightmare.  You know where I am going.  The lights.  We always have to string more lights on the tree.  It isn't sparkly enough until you need sunglasses to gaze upon it.  After all the lights are on the tree, it is time to plug them in.  Just like in the movie that we all love, they don't all come on.  Or a fuse gets blown.  Never in the history of trees in our house have all the strings of lights actually lit up.  There is always a dark spot.  We try and try to turn the tree so that the dark area is on the back side facing the wall.  But, I know it is there, and it drives me nuts.

Time to find the decorations.  Every year we misplace decorations.  I have no idea how that happens.  We place them all in boxes or wrap them in paper towels.  We put them in plastic tubs and even write on the outside of the tub what is inside.  With all that planning, we lose them.  Year after year.  Sometime during the spring we find them.  One year I left a tree up for twelve months.  It was too pretty to take down, I thought.  I did notice people had questioning looks on their faces when they saw it.

Christmas carols play as I remove all the found decorations and place them on the tree.  I love that.  Add a little hot cider to the mix, and you have the perfect day.  After all the grumbling about putting the thing  up, carrying the tubs from upstairs and downstairs the work is done.  Actually, I don't think of it as work.  It is a joy. I turn on the fireplace, turn on the tree, turn on the music and sit and enjoy my creation.  How different from when I was a kid.  We had a wood stove to heat the house.  My dad cut a cedar tree.  We decorated it with whatever we had.  Certainly no themed trees.  All the lights were colored, and they got very hot. When the holidays are over and the trees are taken down, the house seems lonely.  It takes a few days to get over the saddness.

But before any of that can occur, bulbs have to be planted.  Spring will return.  I want it to be pretty.