By Jim O’Loughlin
It was true that she was one of those people who really enjoyed Christmas. She shopped at all the Black Friday sales and made a big fuss over decorating the tree. Each of the kids had had a favorite ornament. Melody’s was an angel that was cleverly designed so the halo looked like it was floating over the angel’s head, and Charlie’s looked like a basketball.
The house somehow always seemed a little warmer when the tree was up and decorated. When she said that to Randy, her husband, he said that it probably was warmer because she had put so many lights on the tree, it was a fire hazard. Randy could be like that sometimes.
When the kids were little, she’d gotten into the habit of staying up late, wrapping presents and putting them under the tree after the kids had gone to bed so that on Christmas morning the house would be transformed as if something magical had happened. Of course, to make that magic happen, she’d had to stay up well after midnight until everything was in place. Randy would offer to help, but he was so awful about wrapping presents carefully that she would just tell him to go to sleep and let her do it.
But this meant that Christmas morning itself was always kind of a blur to her. She didn’t get enough sleep, the kids got up too early, and in no time at all, the house was in utter chaos, with wrapping paper and ribbons strewn throughout the living room and everyone absorbed by their favorite gift of the year. By the time she felt like herself again, it always seemed like she had missed some part of Christmas, and she was eager to stretch out the holiday.
Maybe that was why she had always kept the tree up until the end of January. It had become a habit that she kept up even after the kids had grown up and moved out on their own. She thought of it as a tradition, at least until The Year the Christmas Tree Never Came Down.
It was right after she and Randy had retired, which was also the first time it was just the two of them for Christmas. By this time, Melody was married and spending Christmas that year with her husband’s family a few states over, which was only fair since Melody and her husband had visited with the grandkids over Thanksgiving. Charlie was still in college, but he was studying abroad in China for the year, where there was no Christmas break. So it was just her and Randy, and though that was no one’s fault, it made her a little sad. Randy must have seen this coming because he insisted they go to Arizona for a month in the winter, which was uncharacteristically adventurous for him. She knew it was the kind of trip couples should take early in their retirement, so she agreed to spend February in Scottsdale. She kept intending to take down the tree, but with all that had to happen for them to leave for a month, she just didn’t have time to put everything away. It was an artificial tree, so what did it matter if it was waiting for them when they got back home?
She ended up liking the warmth of Arizona, and Randy was able to go golfing every day, which was wonderful until he tore a rotator cuff in his shoulder, which required surgery. When he was finally well enough that they could come back home, the shoulder was still bothering him a lot. The Christmas tree in the middle of the living room was the least of their concerns.
And, she had to admit, she had forgotten all about the tree while they were in Arizona. It was a pleasant surprise to see when they got home in the middle of March, and had a festive-looking living room. It made the house a little cheerier during Randy’s recovery. She didn’t want to take it down right away, and Randy was under doctor’s orders not to do any kind of lifting, so it stayed where it was.
Then, in April, Melody called to ask if they could come help with the baby for a while, just while Melody was going back to work. She remembered how hard that time had been with her first. She was glad to be asked to play this grandmotherly role, so she said yes right away without even talking to Randy first.
She probably should have talked to Randy first. He hadn’t recovered from the rotator cuff surgery as quickly as they had expected, and, though he didn’t say it directly, he didn’t want to leave the house again.. But instead of saying what was really on his mind, he insisted he wasn’t going to be the one to take down the tree. That was fine with her. She liked having the tree up. So things were still unresolved when they left to help Melody for a couple of weeks, which ended up being a month, and it was almost the middle of May by the time they got back home.
Well, at the end of May, Charlie’s year in China would be over, and she thought it would be so nice to have the tree up for his arrival, since he hadn’t really had Christmas the previous year, so it stayed in place. But then Charlie wanted to travel around Asia a bit before coming home, which only made sense, but it was the end of June before he was back in the country. They were able to unwrap all of the gifts from China that Charlie brought back with him around the Christmas tree, which she had thought was wonderful, even if Randy and Charlie seemed to think it all a little strange.
Of course, by then their tree had become a punch line among their neighbors. Her friend Patty told her about this old movie called Christmas in July and insisted that she should keep the tree up so that they could have a party and all watch the movie together, which they did, but with everyone’s vacation schedules, they didn’t end up watching the movie (which actually wasn’t very good) until the beginning of August.
By then, even she was tired of the tree and ready for it to come down. She swore she would have it done before their annual vacation to the cabin on the lake, but somehow she never got around to it, and, lo and behold, it was Labor Day weekend, and they still had a Christmas tree in the living room.
That was when she started having trouble breathing. Doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her initially, and it had been a real scare. When she was in the hospital and things seemed touch and go, she had asked Randy if they could keep the tree up until she got home, which she realized was a sentimental thing to want, especially when the doctors realized things weren’t as bad as they had first feared. She ended up needing a procedure that wasn’t even quite an operation, so it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
By the time she felt like herself again it was the middle of October, and she had sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to have trick or treaters come to her house to see a Christmas tree, but on the 31st, there she was, coming up with excuses to explain to tiny Darth Vaders and Disney princesses why they still had a Christmas tree.
She video-called Melody on Halloween to see the kids’ costumes, and that was when she found out that Melody’s family was going to come visit for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas again. It was just too hard for them to drive in for Christmas, what with the unpredictability of the weather, and Melody asked if she would keep the tree up for the kids so that it could be a sort of Thanksistmas holiday. That made sense, but then why even take the tree down only to set it all up again? By that point, Randy said it seemed more like permanent furniture, so the tree stayed up and remained through December and Christmas of that year. She and Randy and Charlie celebrated together, and no one even said anything about the tree, not even to joke about it.
So, on December 26, she took that tree down and packed it away.
Jim O'Loughlin is the author of THE CORD (BHC Press), a Midwest Book Award finalist. His other books include the firsthand account THE LAST CAUCUS IN IOWA (Ice Cube Press) and the flash fiction collection DEAN DEAN DEAN DEAN (Twelve Winters Press). He is the host of the Final Thursday Reading Series, which will celebrate its 25th season in 2025-26.
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