When it comes to the holidays, I tend to suffer from a kind of temporary split personality disorder.

There is the rational, sane part of me that knows that holidays are really about enjoying time with family and who cares if your cards don’t get mailed ‘till after the New Year and if those pine tree and candy cane shaped cookie cutters you bought with the intention of baking only wind up in your daughter’s Play-Doh bucket.

Then there is the other side that goes a bit mental even though she should know better -- the side that gets brainwashed by all the perfect holiday tableaux in the Pottery Barn Kids catalogs, and who secretly sneaks a peek inside Martha Stewart Living in the grocery line and comes away convinced that she should be carving out some time to make heartfelt homemade presents like mason jar snow globes or tea cup votive candles. . .

I had designated Saturday as our “find a tree” day and was kind of bummed out when my husband suggested that we go to Home Depot.

“Home Depot??”

I’d had visions of a cute photo of our little one cavorting in a twinkling Christmas tree lot that we could use for our holiday card this year and somehow the big box hardware store didn’t strike me as the kind of place that would have the right ambiance.

“Shan, those other places are such a rip-off,” my husband insisted. He’d had his heart set on Home Depot ever since our next-door neighbor told him that you could get a tree for $30 bucks. I reluctantly acquiesced, and as we pulled into the parking lot it began to rain. The ambiance was as I expected -- a bunch of tied up trees were piled on top of each other in a fenced in area of the parking lot, lying on their sides on the wet asphalt.

So much for getting that holiday photo, I thought. My daughter, Emi, on the other hand, seemed to have an entirely different opinion of the place. We’d just last week bought her a pair of rubber rain boots and this was her first foray into the wonderful world of puddles. Watching her jump and twirl and giggle, I pulled out the camera. As my husband waited in line with what turned out to be a near perfect seven-foot Noble Fir -- only thirty bucks! -- Emi and I ran around the adjacent plant nursery. I got a great shot of her leaping into a puddle in front a cascade of red and white flowers.

Next weekend, instead of baking cookies, maybe we will be making some cool Play-Doh candy canes and Christmas trees.

By Shannon Matus-Takaoka

Labels: Christmas trees, Shannon Matus-Takaoka

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