There are some things that should never be rushed

When we were young, my sister Jen and I would take it in turns to decorate the Christmas tree. I don't mean year by year, I mean day by day. I would decorate it one day and she would do it the next, and this would continue from when the tree arrived, until Christmas Eve. 

On Saturday I dug up the tree from the garden, a blue spruce I bought last Christmas, and stood it in the shed to let it get used to being out of the cold. The next day we brought it into to my study, where it will live incognito, born to blush unseen, except when I leave the door open. 

Bring in a tree, a young Norwegian spruce,
Bring hyacinths that rooted in the cold.
Bring winter jasmine as its buds unfold -
Bring the Christmas life into this house.                                                                                                                           

There was a one and a half hour time slot between my arriving home from somewhere and Dave and I going out. I'd asked him what time we needed to set off and I thought I'd have time to decorate the tree before that. Then he brought forward the departure time and I got snarky. I left the tree in disarray and spent the first ten minutes of our journey doing deep breathing and telling myself that I couldn't expect someone who doesn't get Christmas to understand that wrenching me away from the tree decoration was just NOT ON.

You know what? It was all my own fault. You cannot rush dressing a tree, and I should not have tried to fit it into a slot, any slot. I completed it yesterday, but it may need further tweaking, like a manuscript. 

The quote above is from a poem by Wendy Cope called The Christmas Life. I don't have permission to publish it, but you can read it here. I love this poem. Do read it.