With holiday upon us, a family staple is missing

We never have our act together this time of year, regardless of the sincerity of the pledge, made at Thanksgiving, that things will be different.

The successes vary from year to year, but there are always a few failures guaranteed.

Some traditions we’ve let slip permanently into the void.

We haven’t sent a Christmas card in years. We tried after our marriage, we really did. For a few years, I even caved to my wife’s persistent nudging and wrote those year-end update letters.

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you have a pretty good sense of how those went.

The reviews were strong from those who did not actually appear in the letter.

But snark is my greatest weakness, and although I don't hesitate to poke fun at myself along with everyone else, there were some hurt feelings. What I saw as funny, it became clear, was inappropriate within the social constructs of mass-mailed holiday greetings. That was the end of the letters. Other years, I've let the outside lights slide until the week before Christmas. Always, there is the mad dash for lastminute gifts.

This year, though, the primary failure is glaring.

We have no Christmas tree. Before I go on, I will say that we do have a Christmas tree. Just not the Christmas tree.

There is an artificial tree in the living room. We have always been a real-tree family, but the year we moved to Ohio was hectic one. My daughter was born a few days before Christmas, and we moved out of our house in Pennsylvania on Dec. 27.

A real tree that year seemed a little much, so we bought a fake tree that we took down and packed up on Dec. 26.

Our first Christmas in Ohio, we went back to a real tree in the family room. But we had the artificial tree, so we set that up in the living room. Since then, we've had two trees.

Until this year, that is.

This year, my son and I strung the outside lights the weekend after Thanksgiving. A family record. Things were looking up.

He would be back at college, but the rest of us planned on making the annual trip to Timbuk Farms north of Granville the following weekend.

My daughter's dance schedule knocks Saturdays out. That meant the hunt for the tree would have to be conducted on a Sunday.

This year, though, my wife and I received our COVID booster shots on consecutive Saturdays. The booster didn't wallop us the way the vaccine had, but it still left us fatigued and achy for 24 hours. Dec. 5 and Dec. 12 slipped by without a tree.

No matter, we figured. Our daughter's dance schedule for the 18th was abbreviated, and by then our son would be home from college and my sister in town. We all could go!

Then the dance schedule changed, which meant my daughter and wife could no longer go. And the dreary, wet day didn't seem conducive to stomping around a muddy hillside.

This past Sunday was the winter dance recital. So here we are, five days before Christmas as I write this, with a recliner still where the tree should be.

A tree lot would have to do this year, I decided Sunday night. As it turns out, that may have been a decision made too late.

The lots are drying up like an unwatered Scotch pine cut down in October. With various Deckers still at work and school through Friday, our time and tree options are shrinking by the minute.

I'm trying to find comfort in knowing that this is closer to my childhood tradition.

My dad was German, and his family put up their tree on Christmas Eve. He let that slide a little when we were kids, but we never had a tree up more than a week before the holiday. If we got the tree any earlier than that, it sat in a bucket outside.

But at least we had the tree in hand. I fear that I will have to resort to moreextreme measures.

My neighbor has been going back and forth for a few years now about taking down the pines that separate our property.

Larry, my friend, this might be the year.

tdecker@dispatch.com