Looking past the picture

One of the frequent criticisms of social media is how perfect and flawless everyone makes their lives look, and how that portrayal can cause serious anxiety and stress if your own life doesn't match up.

My family has often joked that I don't know any short stories, but for a long time now, I've enjoyed using social media to tell the story, citing that I saved 1000 words by just posting a picture. But a picture doesn't tell the entire story, so forgive me for going back to my long-winded ways. It's the only way you'll know the story behind this year's Christmas tree photo.

We are using the current tree for the 13th year in a row. Last year, as the joints got weaker and the artificial tree was shedding more and more needles, it was beginning to look ragged. The pre-lit lights were a thing of the past, as they stopped working around year 2 or 3, but the tree was perfectly good, so we would use our own strands of lights. We decided last year when we took it down, that we would try to get one more season out of it, so I decided that I would like to flock the tree to give it a little more bulk and hide the bare spots that had shed needles.

Pinterest and YouTube to the rescue. After reading several articles about how easy it was to flock a tree, and watching video demonstrations, I chose the product and rolled up my shirt sleeves. The articles suggested that it was a job best done outdoors, but with unpredictable weather in Ohio, I opted for the garage.

The procedure is fairly straightforward. You mist the sections of your tree with plain tap water, sift the white flocking powder onto the tree, and then mist again to set the powder.

All while sporting a Martha-Stewart-esque smirk of what a good thing it is.

About three weeks ago, I commandeered our garage, drop cloth in tow and started to flock the tree. Soon, the garage was filled with a fine white mist, making the space look like a haunted house fog machine. Then I understood why the instructions suggested that I should probably be wearing goggles and a dust mask.

As I set the flocking to the branches, it did indeed stick pretty well. To everything. Including the soles of my shoes, about 1/4 thick of white paste-y goop on them. Nevertheless, I was committed at this point. Section by section, I flocked and made junior high jokes, about what a flocking mess it was, and what the flock, etc. Finally, I was finished. The instructions recommended that I let the tree dry at least 24 hours, I opted for 48, determined not to haul the mess into the house. Hubby was unhappy enough with the garage mess in his man-space. Forty-eight hours later, again with a determination to contain the mess outside the house, I took the leaf blower to the sections, hoping to blow off any loose flocking. (that wasn't part of the instructions).

Satisfied that all the loose flock was gone, I carried the sections into a spare bedroom until I was ready to decorate the tree. There the sections lounged in their snow simulated glory until Friday, for the day after Thanksgiving decorating.

It was as if Jack Frost took a page from Hansel & Gretel and left a trail of flock as I carried the sections to the living room. As I assembled the tree, I started to cough and wheeze and remembered the dust mask. Every time we touched a branch, our living room simulated a snow globe. We realized that putting a lot of lights on the tree would probably create 8-10 inches of living room snow, so we opted for a handful of big LED lights.

My husband brought the shop vacuum in the house trying to keep up with the indoor blizzard but as the exhaust from the shop vacuum hit the tree, more snow flew as he was cleaning up the initial flurry.

Our junior high flock jokes stopped being funny and we possibly mispronounced flock, substituting a "U" for the "LO". Cursing and sweating, coughing and wheezing, and trying to contain the mess, I resembled a "Before" image for a Head & Shoulders dandruff control advertisement.

If you've read this far, I appreciate your dedication to the whole story as much as I was dedicated to finishing what I started. At one point, I almost ran out and bought the new tree, but sometimes you are so far into an adventure, that you must stay the course.

I do like the way our tree looks and I am grateful that we no longer have a dog to brush by the tree with every prancing footstep. It's a perfect storm waiting to happen.

I will never again flock the halls, the tree, or any other part of our decorations. The irony when you really step back? We get so caught up in appearances that it's easy to forget that there probably wasn't a whole lot of snow the first year in Bethlehem, and there certainly weren't baubles and beads hanging off tree branches.

Instead, was something more precious and beautiful than all the gold, frankincense, and myrrh in the world.

Instead, there was a promise.

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy." ~Matthew 2:10.