As a kid, searching for the perfect Christmas tree was quite the event. My parents would take us to the Christmas tree farm and we'd wander around and size up every single one. The best part was getting to help saw down the tree. You know, with one of those little handsaws the farm people give you. My brother is five years younger than me, so there were several years that I got to do all the sawing because he was too little. Of course, he wanted to help, so my parents, in their infinite wisdom, let him help "hold" the tree while I sawed. My dad was actually holding it, but my brother got to wrap his little mitten-covered hands around the trunk, too. His arms were too short to reach through the branches, though, so the only place he could grip was at the bottom. You know, where I was sawing. And yeah, the year he was three, I totally sawed into his fingers. I am not EVEN joking, people. I sawed right into his teeny toddler fingers! And he SHRIEKED. And WAILED. And BLED. And my parents were pissed at me. But it totally wasn't my fault! What genius puts his hands in the path of a handsaw, especially one being wielded by one's older sister who has NOT forgotten one's hair-yanking and Barbie-snatching shenanigans? Okay no, I actually didn't do it on purpose. Truly. Although I have to say, looking back on it, that's one of my favorite holiday memories. Probably not among my brother's Top Ten, but that's just because he has no sense of humor.

He also has no sense of aesthetic, at least when it comes to trees. My brother and I could never agree on which of the many trees at the farm should be our Christmas tree. As a result, there was always much bickering and bribing and threats of finger sawing. One year my brother chose a tree that was particularly terrible - it was crooked and scraggly and ugly. Even my parents thought so. But my brother insisted that my dad put his handkerchief on it to mark it as The One while we looked around at other options. So my dad did, and then when my brother wasn't looking, my dad switched the handkerchief to the tree I wanted which was not crooked or scraggly but beautiful. It's not that he was playing favorites - it's just that my brother's tree sucked. I would think my brother would have been perplexed by my sudden willingness to reconsider "his" tree followed by my exuberant agreement that in fact "his" tree was indeed quite lovely. But perhaps he chalked it up to Christmas goodwill. Or perhaps he believed in the amazing conversion powers of his ugly-ass tree. Or perhaps he was quite simply a nimwit. Point is, his ignorance was my bliss. And that was the day I determined that my dad was totally cool.

Now I know that sounds sorta sneaky of my dad, but when you think of the Santa lies that parents tell their kids, you realize that deceit runs rampant during the holidays. I learned this lesson early on when, at age four, I discovered the truth about Santa. I had asked my mom if reindeer really fly. I was not a skeptical, scientific child, and knowing myself as well as I do, it seems obvious to me that this question was asked in awe, not as a request for empirical evidence. But my mom took my inquiry as a sign that I was ready to hear the truth - which, yeah, I totally wasn't, because when she told me that not only do reindeer not actually fly, but Santa Claus does not actually (gasp) exist, apparently I did not speak to her for several days. I do not remember this AT ALL - certainly I blocked my mother's transgression from memory in order to cope. But I can imagine how enraged I must have been that she'd had the audacity to tell me that Santa didn't exist and then, once that fact had sufficiently sunk in, how furious I must have been all over again to realize that she had lied to me from Day One. You can see how the whole thing would have caused a bit of an existential crisis. However, the next year, in kindergarten, I remember feeling much smarter than all those poor suckers who still believed The Santa Myth and so I suppose that made up for it.

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Rob and I wish all of you - our in-person friends and my blog family - a very happy holiday.