At this time of year I always congratulate myself for having the foresight to live across the road from the council’s Christmas tree collection point. On the day my wife decides enough is enough, I can simply drag the tree out the front door, a few stubborn ornaments still buried in its branches, and launch it like a caber on to the pile. I think they compost them or something, but I won’t pretend I have any real interest in the rest of my tree’s journey.
The first week of January brings on a kind of temporal jet lag. We’ve already seen in the new year, making rash promises to ourselves and investing the next 12 months with all manner of false hope, but the trappings of last year still surround us: an open bottle of wine that must be drunk or disposed of before one’s new relationship with alcohol can begin; unfinished books and box sets begun in the post-Christmas lull; old bills as yet unpaid. Two defining factors of 2017 – Donald Trump’s inauguration and the triggering of article 50 – are still a few weeks ahead of us. And that stupid Christmas tree is still up.
Some of this is comforting. As previewed, 2017 promises to be a dystopian wasteland patrolled by driverless cars, so a brief transition period – neither one year nor the other – is certainly welcome. There is probably something therapeutic to be derived from pretending none of it’s happening yet. After all, If you’d known what 2016 was going to be like, you probably would have kept drinking right through January. Maybe you did anyway. If so, well played.
Dog days
On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said in favour of moving on, for good or ill. I recall that this time last year I was faced with a dog that needed putting down. We’d been preparing ourselves for the inevitable, but it’s not the sort of thing one wants to do over Christmas.
It turns out it’s not the sort of thing one wants to do in January either – or ever. But by then it had become a bit urgent, so that’s how I spent my first business day of 2016: kneeling on the floor of the vet’s surgery, scratching an old dog’s ears for the last time.
I’m not recommending it – I’m glad there’s nothing like that in my diary for the coming week – but if there’s a time of year for that sort of chore, this is certainly it. A week set aside for sad business, regrets and bleak reassessment. Either you can imagine that the rest of the year will be upbeat by comparison, or you can say that at least you’ve started as you mean to go on.
Another pine mess
I could not have known that this would be the morning my wife decided the Christmas tree had to go, or that she would not be dissuaded by my claims that I was busy. Her sense of urgency meant the annual “undecoration” of the tree was not the wistful, contemplative exercise it sometimes can be. As two separate strands of Christmas lights became hopelessly entwined during removal, I threatened an unpleasant expediency.
“I’m going to cut them off with gardening shears,” I said.
“Fine,” my wife said. “I’ll get the shears.”
“Don’t be insane,” I said. In the end we pulled the whole tangled mess over the tree’s head, like a jumper, and I dragged it across the road.
As I hoisted it on to the already substantial pile, I could not help but notice that the temporary fencing that normally defines the collection point’s parameters hadn’t been set up. Either I was a day early or the service has been discontinued, and I was simply participating in a massively popular form of fly-tipping. I suppose I’ll find out in the next day or two. But by then I’ll have already moved on.
