Holiday Perfection Does Not Exist
Unless you’re Martha Stewart…
When we climbed out of poverty enough for me to own used books, one of the first books I bought was Martha Stewart’s book on Christmas Entertaining. I thought making sixty puddings soaked in brandy seemed a bit excessive, besides me not knowing sixty people, so I read up on creating holiday potpourri. Certainly, I could manage to throw together some dried botanicals and toss in cinnamon and call it a day, except Martha does things on a grand scale, including her Christmas potpourri.
Reading through her ingredients was enough to make me sit down and cry. In the days before the internet it was difficult to procure obscure items. No ebay, no Etsy and where would I find thirty different dried flowers? I decided to throw a dessert party. I had one baby at home, my husband worked as a CPA for peanuts, and I moonlighted as a waitress nights, so money was an issue, but if we served wine and beer and desserts, I thought it would be affordable and a smash.
Did I mention I was twenty-five and living in a sketchy neighborhood? I seriously saw a man running through my tiny yard with his hands full of small appliances, and I don’t think he was taking a run for his health. Did I mention the square footage of our first house had to be 800 square feet tops? Feeling very Martha Stewart-esque, I decided to invite everyone I did know to a holiday dessert party on a Friday evening.
We lived in Milwaukee. Our friends (and us before the baby) loved to camp out at Brewers games and drink in the parking lot. We called it tailgating, but staying out until the 7th inning was perhaps a bit excessive, not to mention less expensive. The beer-loving crowd bravely drove outside their comfort zones to our home, and they didn’t know what to do with the fifteen homemade desserts I had lovingly displayed on our antique kitchen table. They drank beer and searched for the pretzels, and by and large the trifle, the Black Forest cake and sugar cookies went untouched.
It’s been thirty years since my first foray into Christmas perfection on a smallish scale, and I remain steadfastly undaunted. I decided to make decorating my home for Christmas my thing. I’d beat Martha at her own game, and I decided to collect fake (Martha would say “faux”) trees. Full size with a real one for the main tree.
Two years later we moved into a cozy bungalow in a place called Wauwatosa. We met plenty of wonderful friends there, and nobody had a Christmas tree in their kitchen. But I did! We simply did not have the space anywhere in that house, the tree gleamed from the kitchen. After that we learned to move a chair out of the front room, so we had seating for three during the holidays. Our fun neighbors never cared, so I didn’t either. Inside I still aspired to Christmas greatness, though.
We did move to a spacious home when I had my third baby. He was born three weeks before Christmas, and that year, full of sleep deprivation, I asked my husband to take the older kids out to buy a nice big real tree. We had a cathedral ceiling, and I thought a slightly larger tree would look lovely in our living room. When I spotted a mammoth evergreen tree riding down our street I wondered if the poor driver could even see the road.
That poor driver was my husband. He had chosen a twenty foot beauty of a tree. I held the crying baby while he tied our tree to the top of the upstairs bannister. Did I mention that he had to cut at least five feet off the bottom to make the tree fit? Or that I could not reach all parts of that tree to decorate its bare branches? My two older children loved that tree and still talk about that being the best Christmas tree ever. Maybe to them, but to me I saw the bald patches without lights or ornaments. Martha would not have approved. But the worst was yet to come.
My weary eyes noticed my husband dragging a spotlight outside, and I found out he had created a “swag” out of the limbs of the cut-off tree and had fastened them to our stone fireplace outside. The whole neighborhood would be able to enjoy his creation. Since I had just given brith days before I didn’t venture outside, and when I finally did I woke out of my stupor in alarm! That swag looked horrible, as if someone had tied together huge branches and hung them lopsidedly on the chimney. With a spotlight on them to boot. Whatever did our new neighbors think of this? I wanted to cry, but it was so awful I could only laugh. Lack of sleep make me hysterical with helpless laughter, and I took charge of the Christmas tree the following year. We had no swag the next year.
Which brings me to today. I have seven faux trees now. Most are 7.5 feet tall, some are very wide, some are flocked and I wanted one more. I ordered the most realistic (as if a fake could pose as that) 8 foot Christmas tree from a well-known name in trees. I selected two day shipping, and after ten days and nobody knowing where my tree masterpiece was, my daughter took me to the store where I bought the first wide, tall tree I found. It looked fake as anything, and she put it together. The light shows this very fake tree performs rivals anything I’ve ever seen in Times Square.
I felt like Las Vegas had come into my family room, and my grandson loved it! Me? Eh, it was a tree. Minutes later my doorbell rang, and there was the most real fake tree in two huge boxes on my porch. I’m so over the perfect tree, so I kept the tacky Vegas tree up and had the nice one taken into storage for next year. Then another beautiful tree from that online store showed up on my porch two days ago. It’s gone. Fed-Ex picked it up, and they must hate the lady who keeps buying boxes of fake trees that weigh a hundred pounds.
I only put up five trees this year. I’ve given up on being Martha this year, plus having three grandchildren who think ornaments are to be touched and thrown has changed my Christmas tree strategy. I will try to have that forest of trees next year, but I’m beginning to think it’s time to try another party instead. In my neighborhood friends used to host a “Christmas Kick-Off” party. Basically, they hired a bartender (who would wind up spending the night at their house), and we drank. I think next year it’s time for me to make Martha’s dinner, maybe build her gingerbread house and drink.
Christmas and perfection do not go together. I’ve learned to admire Martha’s style, but when I read she only sleeps four hours a night all that loveliness started to make sense. Martha Stewart is living a whole life while I sleep! And I’m learning that children like imperfection. My tacky tree that has a flashing light show that makes me long for Caesar’s Palace on the Strip is just what kids like. And that is a very good thing.
In case Martha reads this, I want to say how much I admire her elegance and ability. I still can’t figure out how to fold a fitted sheet the way she does. Martha? I need you.
