You Can't Tell the Difference After Dark

Because I have been having house renovations done, I have been on my high horse and running my mouth about I might get a real Christmas tree this year.

My old Christmas tree has been getting yellowed over the years.

Fie on these trees, you know? You put them up for a couple of years and then you read in the fine print, oh, do not place these trees in sunlight or they will discolor.

Where do you place your Christmas tree if not in the window?

I ask you.

Anyway, so the old tree, the one I have been putting up for the last 10 years or whatever, the tree Howard bought for Big Blue, it has become old and yellowed and I decided I would put it out with the trash and get a real tree. The house is looking better and the tree should as well.

However.

Weeks pass. I would wonder: What am I going to do about my tree?

Finally I had an idea. 

Why don't I just put up my old tree?

The thought struck me like a thunderbolt. Like Donner and Blitzen. The tree  is still here. I had not the stomach to put it out at the curb. The house is not yet a showplace anyway. There are tools and paint cans and stuff all over the house. Furniture has been moved everywhere. Nothing will be close to normal until after the First Day of Christmas anyway.

Hence, the old yellowed tree lives to see another Christmas!

And as the old blues song...  

... goes, you can't tell the difference after dark.

So true! I just said that to my friend Ryan just now. He had gotten in touch helpfully to tell me that trees are marked down at Family Dollar. However I had just finished putting my old tree up. That is it up above. It looks spiffy, does it not? 

Besides which Dave, the handyman helping me with my house, he and I have hatched a plan. In the spring, when the weather is warm, Dave is going to take certain beat-up radiator covers I have in the house and spray paint them white.

"Dave," I said, "could you spray paint my tree along with them?"

And he said he would!

Spray-painting these old trees works. I have seen that on YouTube so it must be true. So we have a plan to rejuvenate the tree. And meanwhile...

You can't tell the difference after dark!