Five
The tree is up. It has no lights or ornaments, but it is standing in the living room fully fluffed. I bought a new one this year because the old one was bent and crooked.
That son of a bitch took out a bunch of my ornaments last year. Of course it wasn’t the cheap ones, no the old collectable Star Wars ones.
Our new tree is 7.5 foot tall and big across. It takes p way more room than the old one and actually fits the space much better. In fact it is big enough that I think the kitchen tree will remain in its box this year.
Yeah, I normally put up multiple trees. Weird as I’m not even all that into Christmas, but I love the lights. They are one of the few things that keep me going through the darkness of winter.
I have 900 lights for the tree this year. 300 red, 300 green, 300 blue. They go with the Star Wars theme as seriously our house is more decorated for StarWarsmas than Christmas.
Everything is Star Wars, ornaments, lights, inflatables for the yard, stockings, all of it. It’s ridiculous, but it makes us happy. Or happier than we would be without them.
Christmas this year is odd. It will be the first Christmas with Tony’s Dad being gone. We lost him in April to the lung cancer that was discovered in 2015.
Grief is still palpable in all of us. There is no way to escape it, we just keep on one step in front of the other.
So, tomorrow the lights will go up, the ornaments will come out of their boxes, the C3PO and R2D2 lights will be draped across the mantle. I’ll pull them out, put them up, in hopes of making things just a tiny bit easier for Tony.
Now, it’s time to go cuddle up with him. He leaves for a business trip in the morning. Just a couple days this time and not far away, but not in my bed which is too far for me.