It started with a promise.
I told the kids we’d put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I’d be off work, and they’d be off school, spaced out and in need of something to do. I’d suggest that idle hands are the devil’s playground, but that saying came out before YouTube. Now, idle hands have a death grip on a tablet fourteen hours a day. The only thing that could get my children to put down their screens was unadulterated consumerism. A Christmas tree means Christmas presents. There’s a thin line between holiday greed and holiday cheer.
There was just one tiny flaw in my plan: We didn’t have a tree. The rest of the family assumed our beloved artificial evergreen was in the basement, taking up valuable space and collecting dust and evil spirits and whatever else is down there. But it wasn’t. I threw it away piece-by-piece when no one was looking, a fact I forgot until after I made that promise. It was a terrible deed, but the tree had to go. I should know. I’m the one who broke it.
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