A tree-less tree

Christmas time is quickly approaching and I'm very prepared. Almost all of my presents are bought and packed away for transport when I head home for Thanksgiving, my travel is more or less planned, and my decorations are within arm's reach as soon as an acceptable moment arrives.

That will likely be next weekend.

But putting up a tree in a relatively small apartment is pretty tough. I'm unwilling to not have a tree, but I did some looking around at ideas for alternatives just in case, and stumbled upon this idea, which I think is brilliant. A tree created on your wall with lights and nails.

Do it.

Christmas is coming

If you think the title of this post sounds like crazy talk, you're right

I'm fanatical about a lot of things, and one of them is giving the perfect Christmas ornament to people as a present. This passion-slash-obsession is rooted in the conviction that one's holiday decor should be a reflection of the life she's lived. My ornaments, I like to think, could be a biography of sorts.

So I've already started hitting up stores that have their ornaments out and thus far, I have one for my mom, for my sister, for one of my nephews, and for a recently engaged friend (it's a ring!). Just two more to go!

I like to imagine my nephews unpacking to put up their first Christmas tree in whatever lives they set out to make for themselves. They'll unwrap the ones that I've given them, noting how I took care to add the year and their name to each and every one. Pressumably, they'll think something like "my aunt has amazingly good taste" and they'll tell everyone in the room how awesome I am. And, most importantly, they'll have this way of understanding the love that we lavished on them when they were too little to remember.

Pick something.

Months ago, I started a painfully chicky piece of chick lit called Love the One You're With. I knew that it wasn't self-help in nature, but I sort of wanted something that was. Buying such a book, though, is pathetic, and I absolutely wasn't going to Google something. So I searched my bookshelf for something already in my posession that might sort of do the trick, and Emily Giffin was all I had.

I ended up not able to finish it because I was all girly and emotional and ridiculous, but the dust has long settled through all of that, so I picked it back up a week ago. The story's protagonist is torn between two men. One is a man she dated once, and with whom she had a relationship that was desperately unhealthy and also interesting and dangerous. And the other is her husband, whom she loves dearly, but whom finds boring. Life brings her to a crossroads where she must choose what she's going to do, and she comes to this understanding:

Love not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

That's how I feel about it. Not that have to pick between two men, but that love, while it's a feeling, shows itself everyday in the choices we're willing to make for someone.

I told a friend that recently and he told me that my perspective was decidedly unromantic, though I must say I feel exactly the opposite. Committing over and over again to the same person by making his favorite dish or hearing out the latest stupid problem that's tearing her apart, or driving with the windows down even when you know it's going to ruin your hair just because you know he loves the feel of the wind. Those things are love. And all that makes me think that the who isn't nearly as important as the making of the choices.