CHRISTMAS FROM NEW ORLEANS

O Tannenbaum
By
Debbie Lindsey

“Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree…”
They are expensive, cumbersome to handle, require a good deal of space, a magnet for cats to climb, environmentally problematic, damn hard to transport by bike, and if you live alone in a one room apartment -- why bother? BECAUSE…it just ain’t Christmas without one.
When I was a kid I fell in love with Christmas trees and the affection has never faded. Rituals surround most things we cherish. And Christmas trees are downright labor-intensive when it comes to rituals. Procuring the proper tree is an occasion in itself. Some folks actually cut theirs down and do the whole rugged outdoorsy thing. But my family, like most, went to a Christmas tree lot. As a kid it felt like the big outdoors -- the lots became fields with rows and rows of green trees. Everything was sappy and rich smelling, lights were strung about, and Christmas music filled in the air.
There were a variety of trees through the years. There was the white flocked tree reputed to look just like snow (more like a white fungus) and needed a snow shovel to clean the carpet. For a time it was the traditional fir tree, then finally Mom settled on scotch pines, full and pretty but with long sharp needles and a royal pain to decorate. But she loved them the best of all.
Once home with her adopted tree she’d fret about its size and did it lean too much. And oh the bald spot. Every tree is cursed with… THE BALD SPOT. And lord knows it became, if not quite Dad’s fault, then most certainly his problem. He’d be brought in to assure Mom that the tree was positioned in such a manner has to hide the shame, the lack of perfection that Mother Nature had visited upon the tree and our family. Dad also was crucial to the stringing of lights. Being a little over six feet tall meant no ladder was needed. Dad’s third and most important contribution – mixing bourbon highballs. After a few sips the dreaded bald spot became our annual joke.
For weeks the fragrant tree scented our house with Christmas and an ordinary living room was transformed. A gazillion lights bounced glowing rainbows off the fragile glass orbs that dangled in mass from every branch, and long silver icicles stirred as if caught in some mysterious breeze. And, day by day, gifts would appear, as if laid by the tree just waiting to hatch open.
I really want a tree this year. Since moving from my folks’ home in 1973 only once did I have a tree of my very own. It has never really been an option for many reasons (no car to fetch a tree home in, for starters). And the one and only year I had a tree (you should have seen me balance it home on my bicycle) I was determined to get the most out of it. I left the poor dried-up fire hazard, decorations and all, indoors until swimsuit season. This doesn’t count the year when I opted to drag home a large fallen branch that upright stood six feet tall. This was an artsy minimalist endeavor with twinkle lights draped throughout, and when I left it up till summer everyone just thought I was decoratively quirky.
Even though my apartments through the years may have lacked a tree of their own there was always one, somewhere, that I claimed for myself. For instance, my apartment back in Mobile faced a store with a huge display window that showed off a magnificent Christmas tree with all the trimmings. Every night its strands of lights with those big fat bulbs of every color reflected into my living room.
When I moved to the French Quarter my home was a one-room affair. Holiday decorations took place outside my windows with twinkle lights strung along the balcony and crape myrtle branches. There was little need for more, since the season was enjoyed elsewhere with friends. Unlike Mobile where parties tended to be homebound, my friends and I celebrate events and holidays at our many Cheers-like bars, coffee shops and hotel lobbies. Hotels here are steeped in traditions that locals revere – take the Fairmont Hotel and its “Angel Hair Lobby” with its brilliantly gaudy yet beautifully flocked trees beneath a canopy of lights, angel hair and holiday ornaments.
The Fairmont’s Sazerac Bar was just the right spot for my girlfriend, Marinnette, and I to toast the holidays as we read aloud to each other from Kay Thompson’s Eloise at Christmastime. This 1958 book, illustrated by Hilary Knight, tells the story of a precocious poor little rich girl and her nanny who live at the Plaza Hotel in New York. This whimsical children’s book has been a part of my holidays ever since it was given to me nearly fifty Christmases ago.
The ritual of letting gift-wrapped surprises simmer beneath a Christmas tree was just as important as hanging your stocking. Certain gifts simply had to go under the tree, while others were destined for the stocking – there are rules you know. So, my fellow holiday orphans and I would find the biggest and most fabulous Christmas tree a hotel lobby could offer, grab some cocktails from the hotel bar, then place our gifts for each other under the tree before opening them. We refrained from nailing our stocking to the lobby’s fireplace mantel (however, the Eloise in me would have liked to).
Like parents everywhere, mine gave to me the magic, traditions and rituals that have shaped my memories of Christmases past and influence all those to come. Our last Christmas tree shared together was not in their living room but in a nursing home; yet that tree decorated by strangers was still a magnet for our memories and our need to believe.
This year Marinnette and I will sip a Sazerac in honor of the Fairmont that has suffered a Katrina closure. And the moment it reopens we will be there to read to each other Eloise at Christmastime, even if it’s in July. And while Boyfriend and I may have moved from the Quarter, we will still toast our friends at our French Quarter haunts and stroll through hotel lobbies admiring the decorations. But this year, gifts to each other will be under our very own tree as we share our first Christmas in our rambling old house a mile down the road from my beloved Quarter and light years from my childhood. And the lasting gift of Christmas memories from friends and family will be placed beneath our tree to enjoy again and again.