nostalgicI opened the box containing our huge fake plastic tree, set up the tripod, sorted the branches according to size and stuck them in the appropriate holes of the trunk, then pulled out the box with the decorations and proceeded to carefully choose the location of each red and silver ball, each tiny Santa, each tiny gift box and angel and reindeer and everything else. I must've spent almost an hour just doing this, because I felt it was important that the decoration was perfectly distributed on the tree. And even though our tree was 6 feet tall, it was positively covered with decoration, front and back, what with the silver and gold strings wrapped around it...
I stepped back and was, for once, pleased with the job I had done. Perfectionist me was satisfied. It looked great, and I had done it all by myself. Because dad had been on the computer all along, didn't bother to help me, and mom was on the phone avoiding dad, since she probably had found out about his already huge (for the time) collection of porn on the computer. And I couldn't get either of them to stop fighting for a few minutes to set up the stupid Christmas tree with me.
So I turned on the lights that blinked along with the Christmas music it played, watched for a minute or two and went to my room, and I haven't celebrated Christmas since.
