CHRISTMAS UNDECORATING!

CHRISTMAS UNDECORATING
I would guess that many of you were up to your fetlocks, in removed Christmas decorations, over the New Year - weekend. “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. Your job was simple compared to that of Jane and Randy Sweet! The Wall Street Journal featured their chore on the front page today.
The Sweets put up 63 Christmas trees in their home this past Season! They use many thousand ornaments to decorate all of their “fake” trees. (from a dozen ornaments per tree to about 500 on the largest one.) With trimming comes “undecorating!” The Sweets don’t start to take the decorations down, until their daughter returns to college. They use her room to store all of the packed- plastic bins. Mrs. Sweet said that “it takes at least a month to put them away.”
The article also mentioned a Mr. Brenner, who sets up five Christmas trees. One of these is his “memory” tree, which he sets up in a dedicated “Christmas Room”. He leaves the tree up all year.
Reading about this, reminded me of Larry Jackson, who worked in the Mail Room, on the 19th floor, at California and Hawaiian Sugar Company’s corporate office in San Francisco. Our office was in the Mutual Benefit Life building, at 101 California Street. One Christmas season, Larry told me about their perpetual Christmas tree! It was part of the furniture on their glassed-in porch in their home in Richmond. Larry told me about the history of the tree. It was flocked in white. He saw it in front of a neighbor’s house awaiting pick-up for disposal. He asked them if he could have it. He explained why, and they gave it to him. The tree was very well preserved by the white coating. Alice and Larry’s son was in the Service, and didn’t make it home for Christmas. Alice and Larry told their son that they would wait and celebrate Christmas when he came home. His homecoming was many months later, and the Jackson’s celebrated their family “Christmas”. The tree stayed up afterwards.
Alice and Larry had great fun inviting friends over for a Fourth of July party. It wasn’t long, before someone would holler, “Hey Larry, plug in the tree”. They would gather around and sing Christmas Carols. I have thought about this event many times, during each of my thirty Christmases since then.
Ray L’Amoreaux. January 7, 2010.