One of my family’s biggest traditions was bundling ourselves up on a December morning and driving to the Christmas tree farm in order to wander around for an hour to find the “perfect tree”. We’d examine it from all sides, looking for bare spots and checking for loose needles. There’d be those moments when we’d find the symmetrically-shaped, well-watered, just-the-right-height diamond in the rough. One of the three of us would announce, “This one!” only to then find some other family’s hidden tag on it.

Back to the hunt.

“Not a blue spruce this year,” my father would complain. “Those needles… so prickly!”

“What do you care?” my mother would counter. “You’re not the one who takes the ornaments DOWN! That’s when the needles are the prickliest! Besides, those are the only ones that hold the heavy ornaments.”

Inevitably we would find a decent-looking blue spruce, find the guy with the saw, and tie the thing onto our car. We would decorate it that night, going through all the old ornaments and saving Nana’s for last - a small blueish-grey ball that we would hang near the top. Eventually, we had two trees: one for the more contemporary ornaments that we had and the other for the more rustic ones we eventually began to acquire. The third tree that came into existence was a smaller one for my ornaments. It lived on the second floor in our massive upstairs landing.

These ornaments, the ones from the small tree, followed me into my own apartment. Even once I entered into a long-term relationship, the one prior to my marriage, we observed the same “tree-hunting” tradition. We would change the tree farm from time-to-time, once or twice going to one owned by a friend, another time going to one that everyone said always had “the best trees!... “they last until Valentine’s Day!” (that particular tree had needles falling off by Christmas Eve). One year, we made our own ornaments, and into the decoration box they went come January.

That relationship ended and I moved in with a girlfriend. That year, we got a tree from the Boy Scouts. It wouldn’t fit into the stand, so our landlord, Don, came to the rescue with a saw on that rainy winter night. We put up the tree, decorated it, and finished the night with wine and “Elf’.

That was the Christmas I met my husband.

And that was the last year of a real Christmas tree.

He’s allergic.

So that first Christmas of being together… not engaged yet… we got up the morning after Thanksgiving, logged on to HomeDepot.com and got a 7-foot, pre-lit artificial tree. When it arrived and we unpacked it, we had to fluff the branches so that it didn’t look bare and sparse. We grabbed my box of ornaments, I described to him when I got each one or what each meant, and we hung it on the tree. That year, he got me four more ornaments for the tree. When we packed everything up in January, including the tree… weird!!!!... those ornaments went into the box as well.

There are two boxes in my attic now. There’s obviously my original ones. His childhood ornaments found their way from his parents’ home to ours at some point. Most have his name on them. And then there are the ones we acquired together. One has our picture in it from when we went on a hot air balloon ride. There are three or four from the year we got married, including a giant Lennox one that would have definitely required a blue spruce tree to make it through the holiday season without collapse. There’s a snowman chef one from the year he cooked for us nearly every night while I attended grad school 90-minutes away. There’s the Winnie the Pooh one we got the year Juliana was born. There are dozens more.

In my attic, waiting for this Christmas.

*J’s second Christmas and our first time hosting “friends Christmas”*

I joked with my soon-to-be-ex husband that I suppose I can get a live tree this year.

But what do I do with all those ornaments? All those relics of “us”?

Sure, we are friends and spend a few nights a week hanging out with each other watching TV after the girls go to bed and prior to him retreating to his own place. We did the family costume thing for Halloween (J was Ariel, Z was Sebastian, Daddy was King Triton, and I was Ursula. The Santa Train tickets have been booked. We are purchasing the girls’ gifts together for Christmas, and he’ll be here when they wake up that morning.

But then we’ll divide for the day… them with him and his family for the “rip and tear” (his Dad’s words) that morning, then nap here at home [yes, my 5 ½ year old still naps for 2 hours on weekends… jealous?... ;) ], then my parents’ home for the afternoon and evening.

Which brings me back to the ornaments. I mean, he’ll obviously get the fake tree. But how do we divide the ornaments that were ours. The marriage ones are one thing, but the train one that we got for Juliana the first year of the Santa train, or the light up Ariel one from last year when she asked Santa for it at the last freaking minute (CVS for the win!!!). Dividing the day is one thing, because there have been times when that’s happened before. But the tangible, viewable, everyday reminders… either hanging from the tree or conspicuously absent from it.

The tree might as well be bare…