Our Christmas tree finally went up last Sunday.

This year, a large flock of early-bird decorators decided to trot out Christmas w-a-a-a-y before Advent. During an evening drive a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I saw lit trees in many living rooms, bright windows, and outdoor lights on the bushes and trees. I suspect many of these lights were put up as their orange Halloween bulbs came down.

I don’t really mind people rushing the season so much. It’s just the guilt I feel when our house is bare and the world around me is already festive. One of these years, I would like my decorations up by December 1st, the real beginning of Christmastide. Fuggedaboudit. That’s never going to happen.

We are older and slower. And the tree – in its huge canvas duffle bag – is suddenly too big. And too heavy.

The four symptoms of older, slower, bigger, and heavier lead to a simple diagnosis: HELP! And as hard as it was on our egos to ask, we finally succumbed and asked for some assistance. “Jeesh – we really can’t do this?” Then we looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and called a friend.

“David, would you work for food?” He laughed. Together, he and I often talk about food and cooking. Then I explained I was offering a nice brunch in exchange for help putting up our tree. Not decorating – just getting the thing from its broken-down configuration to vertical, level, and lit. Thankfully he said yes and the three of us feasted on lox and bagels, before wrangling our tree labors.

Dear Richard had struggled the bagged tree from the garage to the kitchen. Together, he and David moved furniture and worked out the electricals before putting the three chunks of lit tree together. When I got off the phone and walked into the living room, David had even tied on the tree skirt and fluffed it out. I was thrilled.

This tree raising took me back to earlier Christmas tree debacles. Before we downsized into this snug Cape Cod house with its 8′ ceilings, we lived in an old Victorian in the town center. Those 10.5′ ceilings begged for 9′ and 10′ live trees. I was in my forties and dreaming of bigger, better, and more beautiful Christmas trees. My late husband, Tom, and I somehow managed to drag those enormous green Sequoias into our living room.

After collapsing two kinds of tree stands, we had a welder make us an iron stand. Seriously. It was so heavy it took both of us just to place it in the living room. But we never had another collapsed or crooked tree. Naturally, newly possessed of the mega-stand, I bought even taller and wider trees. Tom’s enthusiasm for the monster trees began to wane. My dreams of bigger, better, and more beautiful trees were his definition of heavy, awkward, and pain in the butt.

The second biggest problem with those ginormous trees was the amount of water they drank. The last one we had mysteriously suffered from a lack of hydration. I had declared, “I will decorate it and take it down, if you will please just water it every day.” I think Tom decided on his battle tactic right then. He didn’t water it at all, and before New Year’s Eve, just walking into the room produced heavy needle showers.

On New Year’s Day I stripped the ornaments, then the lights, resulting in ankle-deep piles of pine needles. A few more shakes and the tree was almost bald. I dragged in a trash barrel and sawed off all the limbs and into the barrel. After dragging it outside, I unscrewed the naked trunk – now a very long, very fat stick – and hauled it to the backyard. Then I used a shovel to refill the barrel with the needles. The second barrel of needles finished the job. We were in our late 50s and Tom said, “That’s it. I’m done. These back-breaking giant trees are going to kill us.” On January 2nd, I bought a 9′ artificial tree. Our first. On sale. Half price.

I hated losing that Christmas aroma. I began decorating our mantels with live greens just to bring those holiday smells back. When we moved to this smaller house, the tree also had to be downsized. Our second artificial tree was 7′. Sigh.

Yup, the tree might be smaller, but I still put all the same ornaments on it as were on those live 10-footers. About 400. Sometimes you can even see the tip of a branch peeking out among the hanging glass ornaments, Santas, and angels. Almost. And I have finally learned that better and more beautiful trees don’t necessarily have to be bigger.

“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, how lovely are they branches.”

Marcy O’Brien writes from her home in Warren, Pennsylvania.