The Christmas Warehouse

Every year in November I drive to the Christmas warehouse and I make sure that the trees, wreaths and Christmas decorations are ready for pickup.

A storage facility full of decorated Christmas trees, carefully wrapped in plastic, just waiting to show their artificial beauty in the malls and stores through the Holiday Season. I have the key to one of the warehouses and I am responsible for about 50 trees.

Once upon a time, I thought somebody would decorate the Christmas trees every year, but that’s far from it. The trees go AS-IS to a nearby storage facility in January. Hundreds of trees, aisle after aisle, lined up like Christmas soldiers just waiting for their next battle.

How did I end up with that job? I have no idea. I decorated one tree, just because I needed to get it out of my system and it went from there. Mouth to mouth I suppose, that’s how it mostly works.

The trucks arrive in November, and the trees and decorations get transported one by one to their Christmas destination. They are quickly unwrapped in the stores, the final touches are made and so the trees shine in their glory like someone just spent hours decorating them.

We live in a world of make-believe.

Every year around New Year I fight an inner battle. “Should I store our tree as well?” It surely would look small against the store-giants, but it would be a time-saver to have it ready, just waiting for us. I always decide against it. I need the stress so it seems. When will I find the time to trim our tree this year? Stringing the lights on our $7-tree takes forever. Yes, it surely would save time to store the decorated tree, but somehow I can’t do it. It just doesn’t seem right.

Perhaps this year?