OK, confession time.

I don’t like Christmas Trees.

I love the smell of a real tree in the house, but I don’t like sap. Being sticky freaks me out. I also feel odd about cutting down a tree just to let it slowly wither in pseudo-life for a month so my home can “look nice.” Yes, there are now living trees which get planted after Christmas, which is a great idea, but then I have to deal with even more sap.

After moving to Palmyra we got an artificial tree, but we still faced with the struggle of putting on the lights. I don’t know if it’s something mis-wired in my brain, but trying to track a single line through the chaotic mass of branches ¹ creates no amount of frustration in me ². Suffice to say, the artificial tree didn’t do much to improve my thoughts regarding Christmas trees.

We then got a pre-lit tree, which should have solved all my problems with Christmas trees. Unfortunately the design of the light system must have been created by the same people who write the Windows Usability guidelines. There were plugs, after plugs, after plugs–and figuring out which plug when where, tracking them through a mass of branches, was an exercise in frustration. Last year half the lights stopped working, so we decided to move in a different direction.

So we searched Amazon for a Christmas tree which had good reviews, was pre-lit, and had a simple setup ³. After a bit of research we ended up with a tree that had only one plug, which went into the wall. The other connections were all done through the trunk. I was skeptical if this was going to be as easy as the description implied, so when the tree arrived we decided to set it up to see if we wanted to keep it. We took it out of the box, put it on the stand, and plugged it in. Everything worked, and the tree was “pre-fluffed” so it required minimal adjustments to look nice. All told, from the moment we opened the box to the point where we had it set up in our basement was under ten minutes.

I think I’ll like this tree.