Walking past a florist on my lunch break earlier I saw a lone, squat little Christmas tree for sale on the pavement. I suddenly thought to myself; "I'm going to buy that tree, take it back to the flat, decorate it and make everything there a bit more festive this year." Before quickly realising that I wasn't going to do any of this, I was merely momentarily enchanted by the idea of having a Christmas tree and the warm, cosy associations it has for me, and, probably, many of us.
As nights get colder, darker and lonelier I'm noticing them more and more, Christmas trees everywhere. Each window I walk by on my grey trek to and from the office is starting to become punctuated by the garish twinkle of fairylights entwined with tinsel and bright, brilliant baubles proudly hanging from ever more droopy branches.
Oh, it makes me yearn for a Christmas tree of my own.
Look, there they are, hundreds of them now, all gathered together waiting, their eager little limbs huddled around them in the cold winter air. It's best to hurry because by the time Christmas is almost upon us all those trees will be gone and you'll be hard pushed to find one at the last minute, and buying a plastic ones' a little sordid.
If you are lucky enough to have a Christmas tree then you've probably spent some time trying to find just the right one for you, but, you've also got to compromise depending on your front room situation. Once you get the tree home there's a lot of excitement and anticipation, sure, you've seen it bundled up outside, but once you've got the wrapping off it's a whole different thing, proud and green and perky, it's the best tree ever! Some people like to let it sit, teasingly, in its natural state for a few days before 'trimming' it, others can't wait, but ultimately you express your admiration for this tree by covering it in tinsel, lights, trinkets, chocolates, candy canes and - depending on your preference - you'll sit a star or a fairy on its head.
As time wears on you deal, routinely, with the pine needles it sheds all over your floor or the occasional broken bauble that fell off when one of the branches got a bit too droopy under the gaudy weight. Still, you love it, and you start to pile up presents underneath it, little wrapped boxes of hopes and dreams, who knows what they'll contain...
Of course, come Christmas day you unwrap these presents and it's either things you asked for, things you don't want or - occasionally - some lovely little surprise gifts that probably find themselves forgotten at the back of a drawer in a few weeks. The things that endure will ultimately be the 'blandest', some socks or a jumper.
Now all the presents are gone, their tempting wrap has been quickly bundled up into a big black bin liner, you gorge yourself and sit contentedly staring at the tree, it looks a little bedraggled, I mean its been carrying all those dreams around for a few weeks now and it's starting to take its toll, some of its branches look a little bare, maybe you should try and tend to it. You start to think; "Hey, after Christmas I could plant the tree and nurture it and use the same one next year and the next, this could be MY tree!"
But you don't, soon Christmas is over and the tree looks more and more out of place in your lounge, New Year comes and goes, maybe you find that one last chocolate hidden amongst the now bald limbs and for a moment you have a sweet memory of why you loved that Christmas tree. Though you know all too well, in the back of your mind, that you're going to have to dispose of this once joyful, ironically named evergreen very soon.
Maybe you take it to the tip, maybe you stuff it into a skip or chuck it by the roadside its ever withering carcass slowly dying outside your window, but it's over, the Christmas tree has served its purpose for another year. It'll take a while but in about 10 or 11 months you'll start to see other Christmas trees hanging around and you'll get that festive itch and the whole sorry process will begin again.
The other way in which Christmas trees are like relationships is that I don't have one and there's not much chance of me getting one before the year is out.
