Tree Trimming
Twas the night before Christmas. Over Opal the moon shone brightly. Snowflakes drifted down from a nearly cloudless sky, skimming over the ice-rimed skyscrapers made of chrome and light, and lodging in the crevices of old Opal's stately brick structures. Everywhere there was a feeling of anticipation, of a breath drawn in excitement, waiting to be released.
Jack Knight turned away from the greeting card outside of his window and focused on the scene before him. The Frazier fir stood upright (albeit somewhat crookedly) in front of the living room windows. Colorful boxes with artwork proclaiming the contents to be "Shiny Bright Ornaments" and "Paramount Lighting Kit -- With Mazda Lamps" were strewn across the room. As far as he was concerned, things were going better than planned. The tree was up. Nothing had been broken yet. Most of the lights worked. Ted was...nowhere to be seen.
Frantically searching the room, Jack started looking behind the couch and under the end tables. He glanced into the next room when he heard the toddler emit an ear-piercing squeal of excitement from the box that had once held the tree stand and garland. Peering inside the overturned carton, he saw the giggling boy draped in tinsel.
"DA!" Ted spied his father and flung his arms out.
Jack hefted his son into his arms and began to pick the silvery strands off of him. "Having fun?" It looked like it. Satisfied that that he'd removed most of the glittering threads, he carried the boy over to his playpen and sat him in it. Ted immediately stood, clutching the side and scrunching his face in preparation of a vehement protest of his imprisonment when a Zwieback was waved in front of his eyes. The offering was accepted and Ted fell back on his heavily padded rear to better concentrate on the cookie.
Jack crouched down in front of the playpen and bemusedly watched the boy happily gum away at the cookie. His toddler tracking abilities still needed some work. He was also pretty sure he shouldn't have given Ted a cookie after making that mess, but... Eh. It was Christmas and he was still learning.
Straightening up, he headed over to the stereo and began to rummage through the box of records beside it. "So, whaddaya think, Ted? Some Christmas music?" His fingers danced over the albums, occasionally pulling one out to look at the cover. "What was that? You want to listen to the Striesand album? Oh, no, no, no." The blue-covered record was flipped past decisively. "I was thinking Sinatra, myself. No, with Dorsey...I've got it here somewhere... Ah." He pulled the record out its sleeve and set it in the player. The room quickly filled with the sounds of Frank crooning "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer."
"Okay, first things first. Lights." Jack grabbed two boxes and held them up for inspection. "Bubble lights or the plain ones?"
Ted flashed him a drooly grin.
"Hold on... Never mind. I don't have enough clips for the bubble lights." The bright red Noma box dropped back onto the coffee table as Jack pulled out a string from the other box. He pointed to the little red balls under each lamp. "See, you put the branch between the wires and push the ball up to tighten it. That way you have the lights where you want them on the tree, and not just wrapped around the inside of it. It looks much better, but you can't leave the lights on as long. They might burn down the house." He shrugged and plugged them in. "Now to make sure they work..."
The lights remained dark.
"Okay...let's try another string." He pulled out another box of lights and plugged them in.
No response.
"Oh, I remember why Dad liked to put up the tree so much..." Jack muttered under his breath as he began to unscrew the bulbs and replace them. "Just for the record, this," he told Ted, "is not actually my job. It's Dad's and David's. I always helped Mom with the ornaments and stockings and stuff. We were too smart to get involved with these things." Jack held the strand over his head and squinted at the bulbs. "That's what she said, anyway. Your Grandpa would drag in the tree and he and Dave would stand it up and wire it to the walls so it'd stay straight. And then they'd pull out the lights. Observe your ordinary string of lights." Jack presented them to Ted with a flourish. "He'd take them, plug them in and..." He twisted a new bulb into a socket, and the bulbs burst into cheery multicolored light. "And, er...well, that's not what usually happened. So anyway, after about twenty minutes, he'd get a string to light and he and David would begin winding them around the tree, arguing pretty much the whole time."
Jack stood and began wrapping the lights around the tree. "Mom pretty much ignored them and cranked the stereo to cover them up. Your Grandmother," Jack added in a confidential tone, "listened to Andy Williams at Christmas. But we won't hold it against her."
Bouncing the coiled sting in his hands, he circled the tree, pushing the lights over the branches. "In a couple of years you can help me do this, too," he remarked in a slightly raspy voice. "Actually, I always kinda wanted to do this myself. But like I said, it was David and Dad's job. Dave would carry the lights while Dad strung them on the tree. One year, Dave decided that it would be fun to take the lights and tie Dad to the tree with them.
"So here's your grandfather up on his toes, trying to twist the lights around the top of the tree and David takes off around the other side, the string of lights flying behind him. He gets around twice before Dad realizes what's going on. Dave's about to make a third pass when Dad reaches down and makes a grab for him, but loses his balance instead. FWOOSH! Down goes the tree, taking Dad with it." Jack chuckled. "Mom heard the crash and came running downstairs, she'd been in their room wrapping presents. By the time she got here, Dad had managed to get himself tangled up in the cords pretty good trying to get out of them. He's twisting around on top of the tree, yelling for Mom to come help him and Dave's just sitting there beside it clutching the end of the cord with a shocked look on his face. I don't think I ever saw Mom laugh quite as hard as she did that night. She just sat down on the couch and let go."
Jack paused to add another string of lights to the ones already on the tree and continued to go around, bending down as he reached the lower branches of the tree. "Christmases were a lot of fun when I was a kid. We had dinner here a few times and a bunch of Dad's friends showed up. They'd all come over and talk and play with us kids. We'd play 'keep-away' with Jay Garrick and Canary'd sing carols..." Jack's voice trailed off and his head dipped. "But it's just you and me this year, kid." Slowly he looked over at Ted and grinned. "But that's all we need."
Slipping the last light on the tree, he stepped back and eyed it. "So what do you think? It's not great, but I think we did pretty good for just the two of us, don't you? The lights are pretty balanced, right?" Jack plucked Ted from his playpen and walked over to the doorway. He reached over and flipped a switch and the room dimmed, bathed only in the warm glowing light of the Christmas tree. He dropped a quick kiss on the top of his son's head as the boy burbled excitedly.
"Merry Christmas, Ted."
-fin-
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