OPINION
Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
January 1, 2018
Volume 28 Number 1
January 1, 2018
ISSN: 1094-9453
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MY TURN
n Wayne Chan
The perfect, much too
perfect, Christmas tree
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he end of another year is upon us and I have
a confession — last month we bought our
first artificial Christmas tree.
The year was 1991, and it was my first Christmas
as a married man. We lived in a small townhome,
and despite its very modest size, I was determined
to show my new bride Maya, who was born and
raised in Taiwan, what a traditional Christmas
holiday was all about. And, of course, the first order
of business was buying a real, live Christmas tree.
The idea of finding our first live tree might
conjure visions of bundling ourselves up in goose-
down winter coats, trekking to a local tree farm that
supplies steaming hot mugs of apple cider, and
strolling along the rows of snow-flecked trees while
listening to yuletide tunes in search of our perfect
newlywed Christmas tree.
Not exactly.
Living in sunny Southern California, the
experience was a bit more, shall I say, temperate?
There would be no winter coats. If I recall
accurately, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt that
read something like, “My other car is a surfboard.”
There would be no walking to any tree merchants.
We drove my beat-up truck with the air
conditioning on high while wearing sunglasses. And
each of us sipped 32-ounce ice teas purchased at a
7-Eleven store on the way to the Home Depot that
was selling Christmas trees in the parking lot. No
yuletide music, either. But I did hear someone
blaring the Grateful Dead from his car while he was
backing up to buy some fertilizer.
Aesthetics aside, it didn’t matter. This would be
our first Christmas together and I wanted to make
it a good one. That meant buying the biggest tree on
the lot.
The thing is, when you are first married,
especially for the groom, you’re still basically in the
dating phase of the relationship. You’ve spent the
last year courting your soon-to-be wife, trying to
impress her, and even though you’re now married
and made everything legal, there’s still a part of you
that wants to be sure she knows she made the right
decision. Which means that something as
seemingly simple as buying a Christmas tree needs
to be a gargantuan task, because you are about to
buy a monumental, monstrous Christmas tree.
It didn’t matter that our little townhome was
T
completely unsuitable for a 12-foot Christmas tree.
It didn’t matter that once the tree was set up, it
would actually scratch our ceiling and knock off
some of the popcorn texture on it. Can you hear me
rationalizing that the popcorn texture looks like
more snow?
It also doesn’t matter that I forgot I was putting
this massive tree on a stand I used for trees when I
was single, which was basically designed to hold up
any tree, so long as that tree was no more than three
feet tall.
Oh, and let’s not forget that since I had spent my
entire holiday budget on this tree, I no longer had
any money for additional ornaments for it, which
meant I decorated the 12-footer with ornaments
from the aforementioned three-foot-tall, single-guy
Christmas tree.
Quite simply, the ornaments I had weren’t
enough to fill that tree. Not even close.
So, what did my gargantuan tree look like? Have
you ever seen those wooden ships encased inside a
glass bottle and wondered, “How did they get that
thing in the bottle?” That’s what our tree looked like
in our little house. Just envision far too few
ornaments on the top half of the tree — I couldn’t
afford a ladder — and some wires stretched between
the tree and the wall to keep the tree from falling
over because of the super-undersized tree stand and
the breeze created by anyone who happened to walk
past it. I think you get the picture.
If you think that one experience would dampen
my enthusiasm for finding a live Christmas tree
every year, you’re right, but it did take a while.
In the years since, the tree has gotten a bit
smaller every year, while the house has become
bigger — and the ornaments have multiplied. And
now that we have three children, the quest to find
the perfect tree has been passed along to the kids:
The branches aren’t even on that tree!
We need more ornaments on this side!
There’s no room for presents over here!
It’s been 26 years since that first tree — and I give
up. This year it was an artificial tree. It’s easy to set
up. Simple to put away. It already has lights! What’s
not to love?
My son Tyler had the answer: I don’t like it. It’s
too perfect!
Someone help me.
Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.
Wondering what events are going on this week?
Check out The Asian Reporter’s Community and A.C.E. Calendar sections, on pages 10 and 12.