Gratitude Practice 2020 Day 302: Life lesson 678,388,767 that 2020 has taught me
Let's talk about Christmas trees and specifically twinkly sparkly magic making white lights. As November 2020 marked nine months of pandemic living, I embarked on a most unsavory task which confirmed this home based isolation framework is really starting to take its toll...and the gift that is 2020 just keeps on giving no matter our best efforts.
Over the years, we've had a forest full of real trees but quickly realized a fake Christmas tree was more our speed and therefore purchased a terrific pre-lit tree at an after holiday sale a few years ago. Great tree. Great price. Great solution. Done and done. Or so we thought until last year, when we pulled out our trusty tree and realized the whole middle section and a few pokey branches up top had gone dark. Boo. The time and temperament of the 2019 pre-pandemic me just threw in a few loose strings of lights, added more ribbon (because ribbon can solve most problems) and we just moved on. At the end of the holiday season last year, we kicked around the idea of dumping this glitchy tree and hunting down another post holiday bargain but that did not happen. And then all things 2020 did happen and here I am reveling in another perspective shifting gift.
November in Utah is cold. And I'm just too wimpy for evening nature walks. My zucchini and flower gardens have been harvested and put to rest. Books have been read, projects completed, bread baked. In early November, it became clear I was inching towards the end of my readily accessible and known time gap filling activities and I was staring straight into a long dark and very bleak winter. While puttering around my house, I saw our artificial pre-lit Christmas tree safety resting in its bag in our basement cold storage. Perfect! Thinking about the upcoming holidays and quickly finding myself bored out of my ever loving mind, I decided it was time to tackle our glitchy twinkly light situation or at least shop for a new tree all together….because what else was I going to do? I ask you dear readers, does this task indicate that I've totally snapped? Don't answer.
In early November, after examining this tree and the growing Covid craziness, we decided to save a few bucks and spend a few hours and re-string our fake tree. Oh yeah! Because you know... conspicuous consumerism, and aspirational financial wisdom, and reduction of needless waste and shopping, and what else was I going to do? So... branch by branch...and limb after limb...bad lights come off and new lights were carefully wrapped anew. After way more time than you would think this project was complete. In the end, our faithful tree was refreshed and twinkly and glowing and ready to help us welcome in some much needed holiday cheer.
So, we take the fully glowing and fully assembled tree apart. We move the tree upstairs from the basement. We reassemble the tree in the living room. We put on some Christmas hits and we trim it from top to bottom. Presto...instant holiday cheer...just what we needed. I feel all kinds of holiday homemaking pride knowing we made a good and wise choice and this project was time well spent. Burke and I are still working from home and my office is just off of our living room. This tree...this tree I saved from the dumpster now glowing so warmly is an absolute joy generator and the needed distraction of a beloved holiday begins. We enjoy our silly bright and shiny tree for exactly six days and then. ….blammo. The entire top section...dark. All of the newly strung lights...now faulty. What!?!??!? I check the plugs and wiggle the cords and...nothing. Why? How? Well...because. Because it's bound to be this way because it's 2020 and because NOTHING is easy in 2020...have we learned nothing? In 2020, so many well intended things just go sideways beyond our best efforts. In 2020, so many unpredictable illogical twists and turns shake us to the core. In 2020, so many tricky pesky unplanned and unwanted pivots and opportunities just keep a comin'. Some real and big and serious and long lasting and life changing. Some way less impactful, like silly twinkly lights on fake Christmas trees, but challenging and frustrating and highly irritating none the less. And in combination…well...this year is just... just not yet done schooling us.
Grateful for this very Clarke Grizwald-esk experience that has actually just made me giggle and sigh and shrug with contentment and a hearty serving of acceptance and appreciation. Because it's a silly fake Christmas tree. Grateful for all the lights that ARE working…. because these lights are creating plenty of bright shiny joy and magic that in the end….it's all working out. This silly silly tree bedazzled with a lifetime of collected memories and pretty glass bobbles….is a perfect reminder that with the hard...there is also so much good to be celebrated. I've decided that I am not going to re-string this silly tree again (at least this year) because this visual is actually pretty damned powerful as we move into what is bound to be a dramatic ending.
Grateful to have had the time and mind set to tackle an unsavory project. Grateful for my new desire to fix, refresh and restore what we already have well before we shop for new. Grateful for the slower pace of everything because it's proving to be the magical elixir to my life long must achieve more...must do more... must be more...high octane personality. Grateful to be so grateful for the warmth and the glow. Grateful for the bulk...the majority in both my silly life and with our silly Christmas that IS working. Grateful for all the glitchy and the glowing. Grateful that so much is working well enough to light up the spaces where I work and live and parent. Grateful that the powerful force that just keeps kicking our trash this year has left me with another frustrating yet harmless Christmas tree size reminder, of the big big truths I've learned this year...those damned burned out twinkly lights are proving to be the best kind of sentential holiday decorations...maybe ever.
#givethanks