The Balls are Sagging
Or…The Dragon might have to mulch the Christmas tree now

I waited until late in the season to get this year’s Christmas tree. I needed something short and skinny to fit in my pint-sized apartment and to keep my companion parrots from freaking out. While Petri, a 10-year-old Sun Conure, has been through this drill before, the newer flock members might have issues with a hunk of fresh-smelling nature suddenly standing half-dead in the livingroom.

When I entered the tree tent at the corner of Santa Barbara (seemed appropriate) and Golden Gate, there stood the perfect Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It was about three feet tall, skinny, more brown than green, and more patchy than full. I stared at it with pity. The song Percy the Puny Poinsettia began in my head.

“Percy the puny poinsettia

Hanging his blooms in dismay

If they had just kept him wettah

He’d be a houseplant today”

I stared at that poor little tree for a while, thinking of what a sad Christmas the $25 tree was going to have on a mulch pile if I didn’t take it home. The salesman told me I needed to get it into water pretty fast. I touched a branch. Many needles fell off between my fingers. “We’ll give you a good deal on it.”

To my great shame, I turned away from the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It was too much to bear. I found instead a 7-foot Frasier fir that was robust and unfit for my apartment. I stared at it until the salesman said, “we could chop it off at the top for you.” Now there was an idea. Butcher the poor tree further. With a sigh I went for the plan (and 50 percent off the price). I took home the cutest Christmas tree known to man. None of my pet birds were disturbed by it. They watched me decorate it as if watching an insane person eat jello with her hands…waiting for me to drool or drop the pretty baubles.

Now the baubles pull at the branches with their glassy weight and the tree mourns its once regal stature in a forest (or a tree farm). It will become mulch for someone’s garden and a part of me will feel guilty for contributing to its need to be dead. But I’m grateful for its sacrifice to bring such a gorgeous Christmasy glow to my livingroom!

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Christmas tree, Charlie Brown, Percy the Puny Poinsettia, Frasier fir, companion parrot, pet bird