Buyer's Remorse

We bought our tree a couple of weeks ago (Yes. I realize that's early, and I'm all for not starting x-mas too early -like back in September - but we are leaving soon, and I wanted to have time to enjoy the dam tree!). We bought a real tree, not a live one or fake one, but a REAL dead tree. The Dada and I have been married for almost seven years now, and this is our first tree. Before this year, we were either out of town most of December or lived in too small a place to have one, or really just didn't want to have to redecorate the tree everyday with a toddler around as we are doing now.

The tree is beautiful. It needles are soft, green, but not too stiff, it branches are full and strong, and its shape is so perfectly conical it should be featured in all x-mas magazine covers. Everything you could ever want from a Christmas tree, this tree has.

Yet, as perfect as it is, I feel sad looking at it. It stands there stalwart and radiant looking back at me as if to say, "Look how beautiful I am, and think of how much more beautiful I could have gotten if I were left to live." Yes. My tree is conceited, too. Either way, I can't help, but agree with the tree. We played a role in it's slaughter, and now its looking us straight in the face and asking "Why". I am remorseful.

You'd think I'd be able to handle this since I am a carnivore. I do feel somewhat remorseful eating meat, and I have tried to cut back, but come on, I'm Mexican, and a meal at my house wasn't a meal unless there was a dead animal on the plate. But since the whole animal carcass isn't on my plate at once staring me in the face, it's easier to distance myself. If I had to kill the animal myself, I probably wouldn't be able to do it unless I was starving and that was all there was to eat. In which case, I'm sure the animal would be sizing me up to.

So maybe next year, I will become a plasticarian. I will purchase a fake tree just like the one we had when I was growing up. Well, maybe not exactly like the one we had since our tree was white, and by that I don't mean it had fake snow, but that it had white needles. What was my mother thinking? I loved that tree growing up just as much as I love this year's Christmas tree. Although, if we did buy a fake tree, I will have to also think about the many migrant workers in China earning $100 a month to make our fake tree and feel remorseful about that. Heck! If all else fails, we'll just paint a tree on the wall.