By Anita Garner
Friends in snowy places are posting their decorations already so it must be time for Christmas tree shopping. It gets cold here in Northern California, but the snow falls only at higher elevations so choosing a tree isn’t quite so picturesque. If we go after dark, there might be coats and scarves and maybe mittens involved, but it’s not exactly like your snowy scenes.
I have a picture of how it should be and I don’t want it spoiled. It’s Christmas movies, Christmas commercials, Christmas ads, Christmas specials on TV. They mess with my expectations. Everything looks like the inside of a snow globe.
Of course there should be snow at the Christmas tree lot, but it’ll be the dry float-y kind that makes everyone look good. The snow won’t make your hair or hat soggy. At all. Music will waft from the trailer/shed where the people who run the tree lot stay warm. Two people over by that giant fir will all of a sudden start dancing.
Nobody’s nose will get red in the cold. No one will be impatient because you can’t make up your mind. When you find THE tree, here’s what happens next. This is all real. It happens at every Christmas tree lot where there’s snow.Once you decide which tree, you’ll find the gloved hand of a pretty lady/handsome man is already holding onto the other side and the two of you will decide to settle your tree differences over a cup of cocoa with marshmallows or bourbon stirred in. I have no idea what you people in tropical climates are going to do for romance this season.
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