Opinion
Taking a stand on Christmas tree fights
EDMOND — Here’s a new take on an old carol: “Oh Christmas tree. Oh Christmas tree. How annoying are your branches ...”
In particular, when the branches scrape against your face while you’re trying to wrestle the trunk into a stand as a significant other offers “helpful” instructions from an upright position.
“Live trees, what a pain,” confirms Paul Agnetta of Danvers, Mass. “You know I was always the one lying on the ground. Then it’s, ‘A little to the left, a little to the right.’”
The National Christmas Tree Association may not want to hire Agnetta for its next ad campaign. But in many ways, he’s hit on a Christmas tradition as prevalent as eggnog: Married couples who get into fights while setting up the tree.
Sure, money and children bring tension into a relationship. But lying on your back as you try to turn three little screws into a sap-covered trunk while needles fall into your eyes and your partner informs you that it’s still not straight — that’s a true test of the vows of love, honor and respect.
Let’s just say my first Christmas tree experience as a married person was not what I envisioned. The stand was cheap and too small; the tree was expensive and too big. The carols playing in the background did nothing to bring joy into the room.
Barbara Alex, a psychotherapist in Danvers, calls the whole tree situation “a classic power struggle” between a couple over whose way is better. The pressure of the holidays also ratchets up people’s expectations and contributes to the stress.
“This is a universal issue for couples,” she said.
To attempt something complicated — like erecting a ramrod straight tree or assembling a kid’s bike — under such circumstances does not lend itself to a very merry Christmas.
So what should a couple do to work through all this tension?
“Hire me,” she said.
Trying to keep couples happy and make some money in the process, a few Christmas tree places on the North Shore are selling what they call marriage-saver stands.
With a tapered drill bit, they make a deep hole in the tree, which is placed on a tapered pin on the bottom of a special stand.
One drop down and you’re done. Break out the ornaments.
“I’ve been selling a ton of them,” one tree merchant said. “It’s amazing. You end all the fights.”
Dr. Phil should know about this.
Home Depot also sells another type of plastic stand with a special clamp system marketed as being more conducive to marital harmony.
Every December, Ted Bidwell drives from Gloucester to Topsfield to get his tree with the special drill hole. Over the years, he and his wife, Judy, had “lots of conversations” about whether the tree was straight enough.
They would set up a weblike configuration of wires from the tree to the windows and walls to keep it straight. The system was never foolproof, especially with cats.
“Now you literally pop it on, and it’s straight,” Bidwell said.
Sounds promising, but Agnetta is not sold. He came up with his own solution to end the fighting. He’s done with pine needles in his hair, sap on his hands and instructions from above.
“We bought a ceramic tree,” he says. “You just plug it in.”
SUSAN FLYNN writes for The Salem (Mass.) News. She can be reached at sflynn@salem news.com. CNHI News Service distributes her column.
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