It’s been seven years since we’ve done the decorating thing for Christmas.

I’m really not a Scrooge, though my kids may not agree with that assessment; with there being no children around, it just became easier to avoid all the hustle and bustle. We’ve enjoyed the season and have had  multiple “merry little Christmases” each year with friends and family. We’ve gone to the parties, reveled into the glitz and glitter and complained about the cold, even though we were secretly enjoying it.

The extent of our Christmas “decorating” has been a wooden, green tree about 24″ high that we put out the first year or two of not doing Christmas. After the second year, we just left it out and called it the “rest of the year Christmas tree.” So, technically I’ve been “decorating” for Christmas year round for years now.

However, this year we have grandkids coming in; a Christmas tree became obligatory. Living up to the Scrooge tag my offspring have given me, we waited until this past Sunday to buy a tree and got it for $15! It was just a bit on the dry side, had lots of little brown needles falling everywhere, but it was a real, almost-live, tree that smelled really nice.

I lovingly took it home, untied it (were they afraid it was going to escape?), put it in a stand of water and let it spend the night in the garage, just like you do with a new puppy. Last night, it came into the house with grand fanfare.

First, I had to take it out into the yard and shake it like crazy before bringing it in. All those little brown needles stuck in the branches were not welcome. I know I must have looked like a crazy person; 9:00 at night, in the middle of the driveway, shaking a Christmas tree for all it was worth while dancing around freezing to death because I hadn’t put on a coat. I couldn’t see any needles falling out and that perplexed me. But I’d shook it and my wife had witnessed it; at least I couldn’t be blamed for not shaking it before bringing it in the house.

(This morning when I went out to the car, there was a pile of little brown needles an inch thick in the circumference of 6-8′. Yikes!)

Then the fun part began — the decorating.

I instantly remembered why I was so happy to stop doing this! So, to liven up the mood, I put on some good Christmas music –Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Deja Vú– and began to rock to the Christmas spirit of “four dead in O Hi o,” “our house is a very, very fine house,” and “Teach your children well, Their father’s hell, Did slowly go by.” I kept getting reprimanded for stopping, sitting and listening to the music and was constantly asked, “What type of Christmas music is that?”

We only had 7 ornaments to hang, so that went really fast. We tried putting some strands of gold beads on, but that looked really tacky. We did get 300 lights on that went blinky-blinky-blinky and that sort of reminded me of Crosby, Nash, Stills and Young when I did “funny” things while listening to them all those decades ago. I found a paddle ball that I stuck up on the top of the tree (one of those big lightbulb-shaped wooded paddles with a rubber ball attached with a big rubber band) because it was really colorful; my wife took it down when I wasn’t looking. I did find a pine cone that I tied on to the tree with one of those white twisty ties that held the light strands together. Seeing the fate of my paddle ball, I hid my pine cone on the far side of the tree and it was still there this morning.

So, I’ve decorated for Christmas. There are actually some presents under the tree and the grandkids will be arriving any moment. This is going to be fun!

I wonder if an almost four-year old would appreciate the Christmas music of Grand Funk Railroad?