Being treeshamed
Yes, I bought a fake one this year. It might just save my marriage.
Our family’s move over to the faux side this holiday didn’t play well on Instagram.
Last week I posted a photo of our recent stop at Home Depot to shop for fake trees. The comments ranged from “What?!?!?!” “No” and “I am so sorry” to “This AND the election? Way too much for one month. Sigh.”
A “face screaming in fear” emoji was posted. And there were offers of fir-scented candles.
I was clearly being treeshamed. And I totally deserved it. Throughout my design writing career, I have been a traditionalist, making clear my disdain for silk flowers and artificial plants and my love of fine linen tablecloths and real candles. I chastised my colleagues, calling their pre-lit, remotecontrolled trees tacky and shuddering in horror at the stories of how some consumers slipped tree-shaped pine air fresheners in the depths of their fake firs.
I also wrote an article in 1999 shaming people who had fake trees. I am now ashamed of it.
But rereading it, I realized that, back then, my very meticulous husband wrapped our tree with 1,000 lights. Last season? The tree topped out at a circuit-busting 2,000 lights.
Last year, after my husband spent two days stressfully working on lighting the tree, he ran out of time. My son, now 26, arrived for the holidays and spent a day finishing up the lights so we could put our hundreds of ornaments on the tree by the deadline: Christmas Eve dinner for nine people.
Why did we go fake? It could save our marriage. But there are other reasons, too.
*We just had our living room painted and got a new rug. Who wants branch scratch marks on the walls, sap stains on the rug and water marks on the hardwood floors?
*We were tired of dragging the tree in from the backyard, littering the whole house with needles and drawing blood from our hands. Not to mention watering the tree daily.
*The emergency trips to CVS for more lights were getting out of control. We are convinced there is a conspiracy to manufacture lights that last no more than one season. They seem to go bad just as you’ve finished installing them while lying on your back.
*We were sick of stockpiling the tiny packages of fuses that come with each string of lights. Do you know of anyone who has successfully replaced a fuse?
*The idea of local tree lots selling real trees that already have strings of lights wrapped around their branches by trusty elves never took off.
Yes, the real thing is worth it, but real life gets in the way. My son was all in. My husband said the choice to go fake was disappointing, but he could use the extra two days for something else. “The biggest hurdle for a traditionalist like me is realiz-
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