In a quiet, suburban home, painted just the appropriate shade of beige, surrounded by a sweeping carpet of spectacularly green grass kept precisely at 3 1/4 inches, live a public school secretary and an architect. Inside, soaring ceilings bring life to dramatic works of art by Itzchak Tarkay and Peter Max, plus four original pieces by the incomparable one-eyed glass blower Dale Chihuly. Various works in clay by lesser-known artists, such as their son Jeff, also decorate the home in perfect dimension and design.
Perhaps there have been whispers about the centerpiece of this home prior to a first visit; perhaps the surprise was left intact. A visitor approaches the front door, past a bountiful garden full of blooming flowers and whimsical appointments on a typical hot, Missouri afternoon in July. As the grand door opens and a welcome blast of cool air greets the caller, he feels instantly welcome into the spaciousness and light of the home. There is an exchange of pleasantries, followed, inevitably, by the visitor abruptly peering into the living room of long windows and a 22-foot ceiling.
“Um, is that a Christmas tree?”
Yes, but it is not just any Christmas tree. It’s a beautiful replication of a 14-foot evergreen, full and lush, decorated with lights, ornaments, and even a small working train that makes its way around the base of the tree with a realistic choo-choo and tiny wafts of smoke. Beneath the tree are neat piles of new clothes and toys, and usually Tigger the cat. It is the Norman Rockwell version of Christmas morning at home – presents unwrapped, adults sipping coffee, grandchildren playing on the floor, everyone tired and elated in his own revelry – and it is like this every single day at my husband Jeff’s parents’ home.
Every single day since 2002, by his father’s count. “No, it’s been longer than that,” says Jeff. “At least six years.” No one in his family can agree on which Christmas the amazing tree went up and never came back down. No one agrees on how he feels about it, either.
One brother shakes his head and sighs. “The next time they go out of town, I’m coming over there and taking that thing down. It’s ridiculous.” And yet the tree stands.
Another brother hesitates to drop his infant daughter off for a day with grandma, as though the sight of a Christmas tree in April might forever warp his child and ruin any shot of sanity that has escaped significant portions of the family.
The reason why the tree graces the living room year-round has been lost to the ages. “It’s my dad’s tree,” explains my husband. “He says it takes too long to put it up and down, and it bends the branches. It’s easier for him to leave it up.”
And more fun for us. When we visit Jeff’s parents, our 2-year-old daughter Sophie runs straight for the Christmas tree. Her grandparents are very generous, and pile presents for her under the tree whether it is July, September or December 25. First she looks for Tigger, and failing to find and harass the cat, she sits on the floor with her grandma Jo-Jo, whispering “Wow!” to every bag, box, toy, sweater or puzzle that appears from under the giant tree. In the afternoon and evening, Sophie and her baby cousins play in front of the tree while family members eat barbecue sandwiches and discuss the latest stretch of unrelenting hot weather.
Every day at grandma and grandpa’s is Christmas morning. What could be more magical about that? Like far too many things that I love, I take the ever-present Christmas tree for granted completely. While showing some friends photographs of Sophie and her cousins taken in August of this year, a few stopped to ask me:
“Is that a Christmas tree?”
Oh, yes. I forgot that a Christmas tree in the background of every photograph would be considered unusual for August.
“They really put it up early this year.”
Right. Several years early.
It has been there so long, I don’t even see it anymore. It’s part of the room, of the home, of the landscape. Unlike Jeff, I don’t miss the sunlight and remarkable view of the woods that the giant tree blocks, because I can’t remember seeing the living room any other way. It’s part of what sets this agreeably conforming house apart from its hundreds of beige clones all around the neighborhood. Well, that and the eight raccoons that live in the attic and the mysterious six-car garage that looks like a regulation double from the street.
At this point, I can’t imagine that enormous living room space filled (or not filled) with anything but the proud, well-lit Christmas tree. It would be emptiness so hollow and strange, our family’s longing for it would border on the absurd.
The idea of Christmas is obliquely important to my husband and me, but the actual date is not. As emergency-services workers, one or both of us inevitably is on duty on Christmas Day. We celebrate and cherish our work families, but there is something that harks back to both our childhoods about lazy Christmas mornings: presents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents all around, treats – and, of course, a grand Christmas tree. There is a peaceful, happy comfort knowing that Christmas morning happens every single day at grandpa’s house.
Melanie Boock (melanie@boock.com) lives in Minturn.
