Dead Christmas Trees: My Westchester Confession

Disclaimer: I am a dad living in Westchester, New York. The names of all people, but not all places, have been changed to protect the innocent and me from the glares of my neighbors who are definitely not reading this blog.

The space beneath my porch is a graveyard for Christmas trees. Every year since I moved back to Westchester from New York City, no matter how diligent I am about putting the corpse of Christmas past at the end of my driveway, somehow it never gets taken. The wind blows it away, or the snow buries it, and then one March day, when the garbage men are no longer collecting trees, or they are, and I'm just too self conscious to put the evergreen out where my neighbors can see it, I drag it under the porch. 

I don't remember this being a problem for my parents. In my youth, our family's trees were purchased at Westchester Greenhouses and Farm, put up the week after Thanksgiving, and brought down the day after New Years. Of course, if this were an issue for my parents, we didn't have a porch to hide the trees under. I imagine my dad digging holes in the backyard and shoving the trees my brothers and I picked out with him and Mom. Maybe they're all there, and he never told us. 

Today, my glass filled with a gin and tonic (spirits purchased at Glenville Wine and Spirits) fell off the porch and onto the backyard lawn. Magically, it didn't break, so I was tasked with retrieving it. It was then that I remembered the trees. The dried, wooden branches that once held so much hope jutting out towards me. Pointing as if to say, "You did this to us." They don't smell like pine anymore. They smell like embarrassment, which in this case is a nose stinging compost that makes me wonder if we as a society should desert the idea of composting. The once green needles have turned a sad, orangey brown that make me contemplate my own mortality. "My cholesterol is too high," my doctor says. I should run more often, or ever, but I know I'm going go back upstairs drink another gin and tonic and tell myself to start jogging next week. It won't be raining then. 

The trees are fossils uncovered at a burial site. I tell myself that one day this method I've perfected will be good for the soil, but there I go again, lying to myself. These trees will never decompose. They'll be there the next time I drop a glass. The next time I'm playing hide seek with my children. The next time I want to escape a party that my wife, who doesn't know about the heinous act that occurs just below the sound of her footsteps has hosted. They'll be there, silently judging me for not being able to do this simple task correctly. Judging me for being a subpar suburban dad. At least there's only three more days to the weekend.