How to Ask for Help, and Also, How to Keep a Christmas Tree From Falling Over

Ten years ago, my oldest daughter and I spent our first Christmas together. I was in my mid-30s. I'd bought a small, two bedroom house a year earlier after leaving a long-term relationship partly because I felt called to adopt out of foster care, something she couldn't imagine herself doing.

For my daughter's first Christmas with me, we went to the local tree farm and cut down a gigantic tree--one way too big for the space we had. I had fond memories of bringing a giant, live tree into my childhood home, and I felt like it was finally time to do that again after all these years. The tree fell off the top of the car twice, but somehow got it home. We had to practically clear the living room of all furniture to fit it in the house. 

I'd purchased beautiful ornaments for her that reflected her personality and interests--the color pink, the girliest, sparkliest balls, cats, horses. After decorating the tree with her ornaments and mine--which include ornaments from every phase of my life--we were sitting on the couch enjoying our hard work.

And then, the tree fell over. 

Only my daughter's ornaments broke. It didn't seem fair or right. She wept. I comforted her, and we sat on the couch holding each other for awhile, just staring at the tree lying on its side. After awhile, I tried to get the tree upright again while she remained on the couch, sniffling. "You could call someone and ask for help, Mom," she said at one point, but I ignored her. 

I had left my partner, bought a house, gone through the foster care training process, flown across the country twice, once to meet my new, 14-year-old daughter and a second time to bring her home. I had adjusted my entire life to center around making sure she would feel deeply loved forever. I had let her talk me into getting a dog, and then a cat, even though I don't particularly like having indoor pets. I'd done all this while keeping a job, paying the bills, advocating for her at school, dealing with her traumatic memories and bizarre behaviors...surely I could handle a Christmas tree. 

Two times, three times, four times I got it to stand for awhile--but each time, it would fall over again. "Why don't you call M or B?" my daughter asked, referring to two of my male friends who had proven to my daughter that they were good at problem-solving little issues, such as reading the directions and putting together furniture for my daughter's new room that maybe, just maybe, I'd failed to be able to do.

"Why do you think I would need a man's help?" I asked, and she just smiled.

Finally, exasperated, I gave in and called M's wife P. I babbled for awhile about how unfair life was. All I wanted was to give my new daughter a perfect Christmas, I whined. 

Do you need help? she asked me.

Nah, I just needed to vent, I said. 

And then her husband showed up at my door with a new, much bigger tree stand with eight screws instead of four, a drill, and a giant, wooden board. To make a long story short, the tree didn't fall down again--and for years after that, I chose small, well-shaped trees with smooth trunks that could fit into my medium-sized stand.

Until this year. Somehow we ended up with a beautiful, fragrant, perfectly shaped tree--albeit a little large--with one minor problem: the trunk was very, very crooked. I was the one who got under there and slowly sawed it loose, so I should have noticed--but nooo, I was too busy being excited about having found the perfect tree and providing the perfect Christmas for my family. 

And so, we brought it home and decorated it. Approximately four hours later, I was getting ready for bed when the oldest of the kids living at home came upstairs and summoned me to what she called a "greenery related emergency." I found my spouse lying on her back, surrounded by water and broken glass, and the tree lying on top of her.

"I was just watering it so you wouldn't have to in the morning," she said. I couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing hysterically (turns out she was laughing). 

She claims that I then went to the broken glass to try to decipher which of the ornaments were broken instead of helping her get up. That may or may not be true. In any case, after a couple hours of work, we had the tree up again. It turned out only a couple ornaments had broken.

Tonight, my spouse started a long string of night shifts and I was home alone. Miraculously, everyone was asleep and the house was cleaned up by 9 p.m. and I was just sitting with a cup of tea enjoying the tree. I did this for an entire 10 minutes without interruption. And then, for no reason at all--I was being totally still, as were all the beings in the house--the tree fell over, rapidly, with a loud crash. 

I started to cry. Who's going to come help me at 9 o'clock at night? I thought. Where are the older people who live here when I need them? Why did they pick this particular night to be absent? Why does my spouse have to have this job that means we barely see each other for days at a time every couple weeks? Why have all my close friends moved away? 

As I ruminated on how lonely I felt, I remembered something. This had happened before.

Was it possible that I'd never thrown away that jacked up, big ass, drilled-together tree stand from 10 years ago?

I went outside in my pajamas and pulled some boxes out of the garage. I found it leaning against the far corner of the garage, right behind a giant-ass family photo from my awkward pre-teen years that is so ugly I can't hang it up but so hilarious I can't get rid of it. 

Granted, the wood was cracked on the board, and there was a little rust on the screws, but whatever, it HAD to work.

I lay the tree on its side and eased it into the stand. I screwed in each of the eight screws. Some of them barely touched. Some went so deep into the trunk I was worried they would go all the way through it. Whatever, it was working, kind of. When I stood the tree up, it stood straight on the first try. 

Then I did what I suddenly remembered M and I doing 10 years earlier as a precautionary measure. I piled old hardback books that I could maybe live without if they got soaking wet at any point--such as my Riverside Shakespeare with my original notes in the margins, including notes about the number of cigarettes my professor had smoked that day and the random English majors in my 8 a.m. class who either awed or annoyed me--around the base of that old board. 

It's been three hours, and so far, so good. 

I am probably jinxing it by writing this.

M and P are not going to have an easy Christmas this year. I want to be there for them, but it's been far too long since we've talked, and the distance and my lack of free time at any hour when humans with normal lives are awake make staying connected so hard. My heart is hurting for them. After I got the tree up I lit the first two Advent candles and said a prayer for their family. 

I also said a prayer of gratitude for M and P and all the friends throughout my life who showed up in just the right way, at just the right time, even when I clearly didn't need them and had everything totally under control on my own.