If you’ve ever lounged about the fireside in your velvet bathrobe contemplating whether Kyle is the type of guy who chooses a fake Christmas tree over a real one, I’m here to inform you that he’s real all the way.  Related, if you’ve ever cozied up on your sherpa bean bag chair sipping a peppermintini considering if I tra-la-la my way through Kyle’s holiday-related decisions like a pleasant and agreeable human who is just happy to support my Catholic husband the best way a Jewish wife can – obviously, No.

As you know, my family’s Christmas tradition was to decorate our family friends’ absolutely amazing (and real) Christmas tree in early December.  I loved every part of that tradition; so, when Kyle proposed to me, I thought, “If I marry this guy, I get to decorate MY OWN Christmas tree,” and I said yes.  Here’s what I quickly found out: Christmas treeing is a bit more involved than simply showing up at someone’s house, sticking a bunch of ornaments on the branches, and then eating dinner…and REAL Christmas treeing is the arboreal equivalent to having a toddler who is constantly dropping sticky cereal on the floor while you do everything in your power to keep it from spontaneously igniting on fire.  Twice we had a flocked tree, which had an added element of spreading a material akin to dried-out whipped cream flakes throughout the house.

Every year, I send Kyle advertisements for pre-lit fake trees.  And every year, Kyle trudges our family out to the Christmas tree store to get a real one.  I say “trudges” because I’ve seen families in the movies and on Facebook buy their own Christmas trees in a magical, moving, matching-outfitted love fest, and the Kosior experience is much more “Is our kid pooping behind that tree” than beautiful holiday cheer.  We once took the boys to one of those Hallmark tree farms with a Santa and a candle walk and a snow slide, which gave us all sorts of new places to tell our children to “Stop fighting with your brother,” and “It’s called hot chocolate because it’s hot,” and “We will leave when I say we’re going to leave so have fun already, galdangit.”

This December, we went to a nearby garden center.  The tree “forest” was lit only by spotlights and a handful of fairy lights and the effect would have been glorious if it were not for our eight-year-old repeating, “How long until we can get ice cream?  How long until we can get ice cream?”

Twelve walked up to the first tree in the row.

“This one is good,” he said.

“Let’s shop around a bit,” Kyle said.

“Okay,” Twelve said.  He walked to another tree one row over.  “This one is good.”

“Which one does Mom want?”  Kyle asked, ignoring him.  I scanned the tree area, stopping at one that looked like a tree.  I gently rubbed the pine needles.  They felt really poke-y.  I peeked over at the trees in the less-poke-y section, realized they cost more than the cheap-o section I was in, and pointed to the one in my hand.

“I like this,” I said.

“Sounds great,” Kyle said, walking past the tree and into another row.

After visually inspecting every tree in the garden center, Kyle declared the one I picked as the Kosior 2023 Christmas Tree.  The children were long gone by this point, and so I rounded them up and forced them to agree that the tree we were purchasing, and not the twelve-foot glittery flocked extravaganza they had discovered twenty minutes prior, was best.  At home, Kyle carried the tree into the kitchen, careful not to drop any needles (which didn’t happen).

“When do you want to decorate?”  I asked.

“When do YOU want to decorate?”  He asked, because we’ve been married for a long time.

“Thursday,” I said.

“The boys have hockey practice,” Kyle said.

“We’ll fit it in,” I said.

We didn’t decorate on Thursday because the boys had hockey practice and we couldn’t fit it in.  We didn’t decorate on Friday or Saturday, either, because the boys had hockey and I used our free time to do things like put out the front porch decorations and shop for novelty dishtowels with saying like, “Baking through the snow” and “Sleigh all day.”

On Sunday, Kyle brought up the boxes of Christmas tree decorations and set them directly in the walking path between the kitchen and bathroom so I couldn’t miss them.

In addition to being a pain in the butt about the real tree thing, I am also a VERY VERY big pain in the butt about the tree decorations because I want them to be perfect, and Kyle and I are not on the same page as to what perfection means when it comes to Christmas treeing.  My biggest hang up is around the lights; I like them to be set deep into the branches and aggressive in numbers.  Kyle, on the other hand, is good if a single Christmas light is somewhere near the tree.  As such, I am (self-identified) in charge of hanging the lights.

I got one row of lights in place before I had to stop and ice down my hand from the pokiness of the pine needles.  Eight found me a pair of gloves, and I got the tree lit without further incident.

“Do I need gloves?”  Eight said, as we placed the star on top.

“No, I only needed them because I was digging around inside the tree,” I said.  “You’ll be fine.”

Kyle reached into the decorations box and pulled out an ornament shaped like a snowman.

“You get to put up the first one,” Kyle said, presenting him with the ornament as if it were made of gold.

“I don’t want that one,” Eight said, replacing it with one shaped like a fishing boat.

Eight flipped around and stuck in unceremoniously on the first branch he saw.

“OUCH,” he screeched.  “The tree is poke-y!”

For the next ten minutes – after stopping to find Eight his own pair of gloves – the boys hung ornaments.  My job was to unwrap the ornaments and hide the ones I didn’t want to go on the tree.  After running out of ornaments that he wanted to hang, Eight turned to my pile of undesirables.

“Let’s put up these balls,” he said, grabbing a box of crappy plastic things I had purchased when Kyle and I were first married.

“No, no,” I said, gesturing to the table.  “Hang the nicer ones.”

“But these ornaments will be lonely,” Eight said, sadly.  I sighed; he was right – crappy plastic things need love, too.

“Okay, maybe one,” I said.  He hung five.

Finally, the boys were done…and by done, I mean that everyone, including Kyle, lost interest and wandered off.  Seventy-five percent of the ornaments were on one side of the bottom half of the tree, and I repositioned everything until they were perfect (and the crappy plastic ones were on the backside).  Kyle returned as I was sweeping up the pine needles.

“What do you think?”  I asked.

“Great,” Kyle said.

“Perfect, you mean,” I said.

“Yes, perfect,” Kyle said.

“And dry,” I said, breaking off a pine needle.  “When did you water it?”

“An hour ago,” Kyle said.

I went to the sink and filled up the watering can.

“Better give it some more,” I said.  “Don’t want it to spontaneously combust.”

“Right,” Kyle said, as the Christmas tree lights twinkled.

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The photo above is of Kyle and me in front of our perfectly-decorated tree. If you’re thinking, “Hmm, is that star off-kilter?” the answer is no, I did that on purpose (I didn’t).

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This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Department 701 and Lefse.  Check it out, and please send me your nice stories and people for future episodes!  (Valley News Live)

In “Ooooooooooooh for neat” news, a mammoth tusk and related bones were just found in the Freedom Mine near Beulah. (Jamestown Sun)

You have until Friday to submit an application for your local school to receive a hydroponic tower, courtesy of the North Dakota Department of Ag. (Valley News Live)

Shelby, the longest-serving K9 officer in Grand Forks Police Department history, is about to hang up his collar. (KNOX Radio)

Congratulations to all of this winter’s graduates, including Daryl Fellbaum, who worked on his degree for nearly 50 years. (Valley News Live)

What started out as a classroom party has turned into a “Holidays Around the World” community-wide event in Williston. (Williston Herald)

Mary Stark Elementary in Mandan is receiving national attention after improving math scores at least 10% annually over two years. (KX Net)

The numbers are in: the Great Plains Food Bank gave out nearly 18,000 meals to area children this past summer. (Williston Herald)

The Manvel rink is wearing its best dress thanks to the annual paint job provided by the Ralph Engelstad Arena. (Facebook)

Also as a reminder, Kyle and his friends, Corey and Kelly, have a podcast called North Dakota After Dark where they talk about youth hockey in North Dakota.  The latest episode is up and they talk about tryouts.  Check it out. (North Dakota After Dark)

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