Well, that didn’t take too long. The decorations are down and the house looks less cluttered again. Everything is away in the loft for another eleven months.
Each year we go through the same ritual though of late we have been putting up fewer adornments. The mainstay of our decorations is of course the tree. We don’t buy a real one but have been using the same fake one for some time now. I hate to think how long it has been around as we inherited it from my wife’s parents and they have been dead at least 13 years. I’m sure they had it for a long time before that.
Each year we promise ourselves that this will be the year we get a new one, yet there it has gone back into its box, packed away ready for the same old commitment next year. Perhaps next time will really be the year we buy a new tree.
But why? It is still very serviceable with realistic looking branches and leaves. It is like an old friend, a stalwart member of the family. Each year though, it sheds more of its foliage and bits of fake green leaf can be found around the house for weeks to come. It doesn’t matter how many times you vacuum, they still appear in the most unlikely of places.
Each time I put it away I am reminded of following a lorry carrying hay bales. As it drives along it sheds pieces of straw and you feel like you are in a blizzard. I am left wondering how far must the lorry travel before all of the bales have disappeared and in its wake is a long and straw-filled road? Of course there are too many variables to do the calculation but it amuses me to speculate and clearly no hay waggon ever goes that far to make it an issue
But the tree has a finite number of leaves and one day it will have none at all. By then we will definitely have to replace it, though I’m sure it will do for just one more season.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 