Tanenbaum

Word of the day...Baum...it means tree. Speaking of tree today is the very festive annual tradition in our house of yelling, crying, insulting and storming around aka decorating the tree. Last year was our first successful tree adornment ritual after which we were all still speaking to each other. There must be something about Raffi blasting out "old Toy Trains", munching on festive cookings and hanging decade old ornaments on an even older tree that just gets my family all riled up! The three by the way looks rather fluffy this year as my mom is intent on winning the Guinness World Record for longest kept fake tree. She will still be fluffing out those branches for her grandchildren. I think my parents first invested in the plastic conifer when they realized my fondness for pine needles, oh way back in '86. Ever since ol'faithful has been there gradually getting hidden more each eyar by horribly mismatched but sentimental ornaments. That has been part of my master plan, cover the thing until no one really knows what is under there anyway. I forgot to mention why I loathe this tree...its a little...sparse. Well that is putting it nicely. The tree consists of about 5 layers of branches with increasing diameters piled on top of one another. How do I know there are 5 layers? I cna see write through the tree between each layer. We have made a few improvements over the year, one being the hour of fluffing the branches before the lights go on and two being the lovely angel that now tops the tree as opposed to one tacky, gold garland with multicoloured-lights star that flashed in all its 80s glory.
Still most of me still looks forward to tonight with great anticipation thinking maybe, just maybe this year will be different.

On another note I had to run out to the grocery store for milk today and to feel more grown up I grabbed a Toronto Star (obviously not very original, taking its name from the critically acclaimed Sault Star). In the front cover there is a rousing (sp?) christmas (hannukah, kwanzaa...whatever it is these days, I by the way am not much for political correctness) article about the archaicness of marriage! I am almost tempted to agree with her. Don't get me wrong, I want to get married someday and stay married to the same person for the rest of my life, and I do believe sex is meant for the confines of marriage as a union under God. However, with the divorce rates as high as they are I wonder why people are taking the plunge if they do not follow the Bible or other religious teachings that define marriage. Maybe there should start being public service announcements about how much work really does go into a marriage and how much it costs (financially and emotionally) end one. I'm not saying that I want to scare people out of marriage but I think there needs to be a greater awareness of just what exactly 'forever' means. Props (tops) to anyone who does follow through with the vows they said on their wedding day.