How Did We Get So Lucky?

 

Photo by: Eddie Palmore (@eddiepalmore) | Unsplash Photo Community

“The tree arrived,” Rance stated as he walked into the kitchen.

“Nice,” replied his wife Bev. “Any idea when?”

Rance looked up from pouring his first cup of coffee of the day. “If it wasn’t there when you came down the stairs I would imagine it was between 7 and,” he looked at the clock on the stove, “7:15.”

Bev rose from the table and pushed open the door to the living room. “It already has its first decoration.”  Rance set his coffee cup down and walked to the door.

“A Christmas Star this year!” He looked at the star carefully. “I think I recognize it,” he said, walking further into the room to see it up close. “The sparkly stuff is a dead giveaway.”

Bev looked around the room.  “I like how it rearranged the room in an interesting formation. It’s almost like it is reading our minds.”

They looked carefully at their one decoration tree before heading back into the kitchen. "Let's see if this still works,” thought Bev. She poked her head back through the door and chuckled. A lone gold ball sat front and center on the tree. “My grandma’s decoration,” she observed. 

Later that evening Rance and Bev sat in their chairs, enjoying their newly lit tree. 

“We are so lucky,” said Rance.

“Aren’t we though,” replied Bev. “No one else seems to have a self decorating tree. It’s nice to have no muss, no fuss.”

“And how it slowly takes its time to decorate. Right up to Christmas Eve it finds something to put on the tree.”

“It’s like it looks back into our past and finds decorations.”

“I know,” replied Rance. “Take those little cottonball-like decorations that go over the lights.”

“I see them. It makes the lights look like they are buried in snow,” replied Bev.

“My other grandmother had them on her tree.”

They looked more closely at the decorations that had arrived so far.

“There is something Dickensian about this concept,” he stated.

“Like ghosts of Christmas past?” 

“It seems that we are reaching that point. Why are we so blessed? Why do all the decorations just appear?”

Bev smiled. “I don’t see it as being important why the house is providing for us.”

“It’s the house?”

“How else do you explain it? Ghosts? An armed Christmas decoration cabal? Someone sneaking in and doing us a favour every time we leave the room? I am just grateful that they have good taste.”

“No one else is this lucky.”

And so the tree continued to decorate itself every time they left the room. The decorations from wildly different times seemed to light up the tree, giving it that ambiance they had felt around Christmas their whole lives.

Bev stood, coffee in hand admiring the tree on Christmas Eve. She noticed a sparkle that wasn’t there earlier. She picked up the decoration. “Rance and Bev, 2025.” She reached out and patted the wall. “That is a nice touch,” she murmured as the scent of a pine tree filled the air. Her grandchildren rushed through the door to oohs and aaws. 

“Mom, that is the perfect tree,” observed her daughter Kristen. 

Bev smiled and tapped the wall again. “Indeed,” she reflected.