It is Saturday, the day I have set aside to buy the Christmas tree. All my sons are home and still in bed, and I have a vague plan to recreate a happy family expedition from days gone by, even though no such event ever occurred. I cherish my Christmas memories; I’m just not sure who they belong to.
“Wake up,” I say to the youngest one, driving my big toe into the small of his back as he sleeps. “It’s Christmas tree day.”
“Go away,” he says.
“It’s going to be fun,” I say. “Father-son-type fun.”
“Use a different son,” he says. “I’m ill.” I move on to the next room.
“No!” the middle one says, from under his duvet.
“It’ll be fun,” I say. “Fun, and compulsory.”
“Get someone else,” he says.
None of the sounds emerging from the other side of the oldest one’s door are intelligible. He was always the least likely prospect. I go downstairs to find my wife. “Christmas is cancelled,” I say.
“You could always go and get a tree by yourself,” she says.
“Never,” I say.
“It’ll be rammed today, anyway,” she says. “You and I can just go on Tuesday.”
“Fine, whatever,” I say.
When Tuesday arrives, bleak and wet, I’m hoping my wife has forgotten about the tree. She can be irrepressibly festive on such occasions, and it always makes me feel as if I’m ruining Christmas. But she hasn’t forgotten.
We drive to the same church car park where we always buy our tree. We stare at the sign explaining how the different conifers are priced according to height.
“I hate this sort of thing,” my wife says.
‘What are you talking about?” I say. “You love this sort of thing.”
“No, I don’t,” she says.
“Five years ago, we embarked on this exact errand, and you were insufferably jolly. Fact.” In truth, all our past Christmas expeditions are a blur. How many trees have we bought, decorated and disposed of?
“What about that one?” my wife says, pointing.
“Great,” I say. “Done.”
“Are you just saying that so we can leave?” she says.
“No,” I say. “That is indisputably the best tree here.” I pick it up and twirl it.
“OK,” my wife says, “I’ll get someone.”
As I stand there holding the tree, the sun comes out and my mood begins to lighten. There’s no point in both of us ruining Christmas, I think. It takes only one.
As we pay for the tree, something occurs to me. “We need a new stand,” I say. “We got rid of the old one after last Christmas.”
“Did we?” my wife says.
I’m not sure. I may have thrown it away, or it may still be sitting in the shed, full of dead spiders.
“Yes,” I say, selecting a new heavy-duty stand and placing it on the counter. “We did.”
“How much is that one?” my wife says.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s an investment. It will last a lifetime.”
“We don’t need it to last a lifetime,” she says. “We don’t need anything that lasts that long.”
Our tree is netted and waiting for us outside. I hoist it over my shoulder. The whole expedition has taken seven minutes. I find this very pleasing: what we lack in Christmas spirit we make up for in brisk efficiency.
“We just need to go to Sainsbury’s now,” my wife says as we get into the car.
“What, together?” I say.
“Needs must,” she says. “There’s no food.”
I look behind me. The tree, pointing nose-first between the front seats, looks like a frozen dolphin. “OK,” I say. “But what if someone sees us?”
