OOPS!…I DID IT AGAIN (CHRISTMAS EDITION)

Second year in a row. Does that make it a tradition? 

 

THE SETUP

There’s something about a guerrilla public tree decorating that gives me a festive lift this time of year. Last year, it was a solo effort. I worried my cheery idea might come with consequences. It wasn’t like I was going to chop down a pine tree in a public park and drag it home. No, I’d leave it be, roots intact, its perilous fate subject to other conditions, natural and otherwise. Still, I wondered if a police officer might approach, stand at the bottom of the ladder I’d “borrowed” from my condo building and await my descent (or just knock me off for his own holly jollies), then handcuff and haul me to the station, charged with public mischief, vandalism, theft and bad decorating. 

 

Was it worth the risk? I’m generally a rule-biding citizen, apart from an entrenched habit of jaywalking and crossing dead intersections against the light as other Vancouverites stand at the curb and stare in horror at such blatant disobedience. Vancouver puts my asterisked rule-biding inclinations to shame. I if I lived in New York City, I’d have a drawerful of civic commendations.

 

After some fretting, I took the risk and evaded arrest. This is Canada so maybe I’m on the Most Wanted list. Me and that otter who raided koi from the nearby Chinese gardens.

 

This year, I had accomplices, aiders and abetters. I’d lured both of them into bad decorating, a burgeoning gang, The Red Garlands. 

 

THE SETTING

First, however, some background about the setting. After some research, I feel it’s important to share.

 

I walk by a neglected pocket park every day, only a block from home. It’s a stopping point for the unhoused to sit and to maybe smoke something legal (cigarettes, pot) or otherwise (in a bubble pipe). I don’t judge. How does anyone cope with life on the streets? Sometimes there are a couple of tents set up. I imagine that, even though it’s right by the railroad tracks and trains run throughout the night (I know this firsthand!), it’s a less chaotic spot to try to sleep than so many other purported options. 

 

Officially, the park is known as Wendy Poole Park, described in a single sentence on Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation website: 

Wendy Poole Park is a tiny park at the foot of Main Street, with a curving pathway, trees, and outlook to Burrard Inlet.

I could contact the board, give them an update. Trees is an overstatement. The dead skeleton of a tree with only two remaining branches—a stick tree—was removed at some point over the past year. It’s now down to one, a sad-looking pine, twelve feet tall, dwarfed by the tall building immediately to the west and the concrete overpass to the east. With its lower limbs removed, it’s a lollipop of a tree, mostly stick, not much pop, and definitely nothing that would conjure some fanciful image for lolli. 

 

Honestly, I don’t think the Parks Board cares. Its attention to this tiny space may have ended in late 2000 with the naming of park after First Nations and Downtown Eastside (DTES) groups and individuals lobbied to have it dedicated to Wendy Poole, a member of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation. In January 1989, she was a twenty-year-old woman, pregnant with her second child. She’d moved from Northern British Columbia to Vancouver six months prior, looking for something more, finding her way, starting out by working in fast food. On January 26^th of that year, she was stabbed to death in her second-floor co-op, a murder that remains unsolved. She is one of many murdered and missing women remembered in Vancouver every Valentine’s Day during the Women’s Memorial March.

 

Had I not committed to giving the tree in the park a little seasonal spark, I would never have known the story behind its naming. There’s a plaque and a lovely rock with words etched in it. Like most of us in the community, I passed these markers by, unread. I’d seen the name. It’s really big on the rock. I’d foolishly assumed the place was named for a moneyed, prominent Vancouverite. Elsewhere in the downtown area is Jack Poole Plaza, named for a highly successful real estate developer who’d led the official campaign to bring the Winter Olympics to Vancouver and Whistler in 2010. I mistakenly assumed Wendy must have been his wife. Jack and Wendy’s lives were so starkly different.

 

There’s the history. Wendy would have turned forty-five this year. Let sharing be part of honoring and remembering her. (Sadly, I can find no photo.)

 

THE ADMISSION

Last week, with only days until my boyfriend Evan’s next trip up from Seattle, I floated the idea of him being my partner in Christmas mischief. He didn’t hesitate. That’s my guy. Man of many talents. New skill for that LinkedIn account: elfin antics.

 

Upon his arrival, we scanned the long aisle of decorations at a downtown dollar store and I returned the next day to buy all the tree trimmings. (Nothing was a dollar, of course. It’s self-apparent that The Few Dollars Store doesn’t have quite the right ring to it. Still, the glittery haul was a bargain.)

 

Rain got in the way of decorating. Heavy rain. Bah, humbug, Mother Nature! Heavy snow would have been perfect. Tomorrow then. Or the tomorrow after that. Or not. (I didn’t want the decorations to get swooshed off the tree in the first hour. I also didn’t want to break my leg, slipping on an upper rung on the ladder!)

 

On the morning Evan was to return to Seattle, the weather cleared. Not sunny but anything not involving rain is a gift this time of year. I grabbed the bag of decorations and we headed to my building’s parking garage to grab one of the ladders. (It’s a building of lofts. These ladders are for common use…or at least that’s been my assumption. Why ask? 

 

Hi, officer. Just taking the ladder for a walk. No dog so you gotta make do, right?

 

Last year’s graffiti had been painted over, now replaced by new tagging. Bigger! Bolder! Only one tent was pitched as we arrived to decorate the sad little pine tree. A gentleman sat at the lone picnic table, smoking a cigarette, not paying any attention to two guys with a ladder.

 

I decided to put the star on first. It would be the trickiest part. It also required standing on the highest rung. Let me get that over with before any dormant fear of heights awakened within and before I got too casual from all the ups and downs, less alert, more accident-prone. The star wouldn’t stay. Evan offered directions from ground control, but I got flustered. Your move, Evan. 

 

He’d only signed on to be a helper elf. Ladder climbing wasn’t in the job description. But my merriness was in a precarious state. Evan’s all too aware of how quickly I can shut down when I decide I can’t do something. He climbed, he fiddled and fidgeted, he willed that star to stay. The ornament was heavier than the pine tufts it topped so there was a sag to its stance. Quirky. Let’s call it whimsical. I don’t care what Martha Stewart would say.

 

We switched roles again, with me navigating the ladder and Evan unpacking ornaments. As we decorated, I caught the man at the picnic table glancing over a couple of times. At first, I wondered if we were an unwelcome presence. Maybe he’d come here for some solitude only to be disturbed by a couple of wannabe elves. His face was hard to read. Then he called: “Need some help? I could hold the ladder.” 

 

And so he did. 

 

Last year’s project was a solo effort but, with three of us, it went faster and felt merrier. I noticed a few people smiling as they passed and one person shouted, “Dr. Seuss!” probably in a nod to the sagging star atop the tree. She followed up with a robust “Merry Christmas!” Was she always this excited or did we lift her spirits?

 

And yet he cropped just so to
keep the bags under my eyes!

My new ladder assistant held it in place each time we rotated it. He nodded off ever so briefly, hand still on it, committed, doing his best. He added an ornament to one of the lower branches.

 

We exchanged names. I took his picture, but he didn’t have a phone to forward it. He took ours, too. I could tell he was too close to get us and the tree. I knew the shot would be one of those flawed pics from the days of going to Fotomat. All the better. 

 

He said he was from the BC Interior and had come to Vancouver’s sketchy Downtown East Side to get his son but, in so doing, he’d relapsed. Addiction is relentlessly opportunistic.

 

Yes, Martha. That's the tree.

All done, Evan and I walked the ladder home and I turned my head back to see my ladder assistant walking slowly down the street in a different direction, his face blank again. It was a novel start to the day for each of us and a rare chance for strangers living different realities to connect, however briefly. 

 

This “tradition” is evolving.

 

O CHRISTMAS TREE

Throughout adulthood, I’ve had mixed feelings about Christmas. I’ve spent the holidays alone many times over the years, part choice, part default. It can be hard walking by every storefront and many a home, getting blasted with Christmas displays and messaging. Sometimes I just want a Wednesday in December to be like a Wednesday in August, only colder and, fingers crossed, maybe with a blanket of snow. 

 

I’m not a total humbug. I smile the first two or three times I hear “I Want a Hippopotamus” each year and I’ll never click the remote away from “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.” Not even on a Wednesday in August. (Thanks, YouTube!) It also amuses me that some Proud Boy in South Carolina sang the line, “Don we now our gay apparel” today. I’m picturing a rainbow tie-dye tee and a Queer Eye baseball cap while the MAGA hat finally gets a run through the wash cycle. If the colors bleed, causing all the Fruit of the Loom undies and t-shirts to turn pink, so be it. Sugar plum faeries can be downright impish.

 

I haven’t decorated my home because I turfed all my decorations in early 2020. It wasn’t specifically a Christmas purge; rather, I pared down my possessions as I planned to move 4,400 kilometers from Vancouver to Toronto. Five days before the movers arrived, COVID shut down the world. The big move was off. I’d unnecessarily Marie Kondo’d my home. Whatever. 

 

The next two Christmases past without any thought of restocking stockings, twinkly lights or tinsel. I complied with COVID protocol, spending the day alone, trying not to react as people I knew posted Christmas dinner photos, a dozen smiley faces gathered ’round the table. They seemed to be saying, “Ha ha” instead of “Ho ho.” I rejoiced, knowing my credit card had been spared a spike on account of gift cards and travel expenses. Different things make different people jolly.

 

I surprised myself a couple of months ago as a Christmas decorating impulse popped in my head. I was walking by a park a block from home. It’s nothing more than a sliver of land, an empty lot next to a bridge, the grass trodden over, leaving mostly mud. I looked past the one dead tree, nothing more than a slim trunk and two barren branches, and stared at a blue spruce destined for a similar demise. It was twelve feet tall, but all its limbs had been cut off the lower half. It reminded me of a taller though somehow sadder version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Yes, maybe I would decorate it come December if there weren’t a humbug infestation first. 

 

Graffiti on a wall at the tiny park

I walked by the pathetic park patch daily, the tree rarely registering since tents occupied by the homeless pulled focus due to their colorful tarps and people. Sometimes folks sat at a lone marked-up picnic table, rarely eating, more often looking drugged out or simply fatigued. I’ve read and heard plenty of judgment about people choosing to be homeless, as if living off food banks and a once-monthly measly welfare check is the high life. No work! What a gig! 

 

What a crock. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly six years. It’s clear that life without proper shelter takes its toll.    

 

I’ve seen people in tents shuffled around, booted from one street or park to another without any longer-term solutions in the works. Many people fear or shun the homeless, but I see important social connections and “regular” ways of life...as regular as they can be while on the street amid mental health and addiction issues. 

 

I’m 100% safe walking through my neighborhood. As I observe interactions—laughter, chatter about the weather and gut-driven political rhetoric—I see people who have made connections in these clustered homeless communities. They’re making do with what they have…and don’t have.

 

When the first cold spell of winter hit Vancouver a few weeks ago, I was in Key West, appreciating the town’s efforts to get in the festive spirit with a Christmas parade and lawn signs like the only-in-your-dreams “Let It Snow” and the playful “Seas and Greetings.” My mind flashed to nameless people in tents only blocks away from my home. I don’t have the means to create permanent change to improve their lives; the problems are so complex. Still, maybe that blue spruce would brighten someone’s day or night. Maybe I could buy some simple decorations and spread a little holiday spirit.

 

The day I returned from Florida, I hit the local dollar store, bought some simple ornaments and garland, dragged out a ten-foot ladder from my building’s garage and made a tree so dreary a little bit cheery. 

 

It looked like the creation of some fourth-grader who wasn’t afraid of heights. I’d underestimated what I needed so only the front half of the tree was adorned. “A little bit cheery” can turn out sadder than what was there in the first place.

 

I made another trip to the store, stocking up on more garland and adding a treetop star to my shopping bag. After lugging the ladder another time, the Charlie Brown tree looked merry enough for me to hear the Peanuts gang perform “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” in my head. Maybe the tree would stir a happy Christmas moment in someone else’s mind, too.

 

Passing by a week later, the decorations remain in place, except for the lowest garland. I'd like to think someone reached up and tugged it down to adorn the winter jacket they picked up at Goodwill or retrieved as a treasured find from an alley dumpster. Maybe it hangs inside someone’s tent or is draped at the foot of a cot in an emergency shelter that opened when the temps dropped once again. 

 

That decorated tree makes me smile more than any display I could have created in my own home. When I see it, my Christmas wishes extend far beyond my own circumstances. I’m hoping there will be moments of joy for those who truly struggle, not just during the holidays, but throughout the year.

 

  

 

 

CAUTIOUSLY FESTIVE

Do you hear what I hear? I’ve been “fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la”-ing in my head all morning. It has taken me by surprise.

As a middle-aged single guy who regularly faces holidays alone, these are dicey times. Cherished alone time can suddenly meld into solitary confinement as folks around me pack up to visit family and run up their credit cards with gift purchases. Chocolates conveniently displayed by the checkout counter! Clearance rack carves! A second-hand copy of Snooki’s autobiography! (Under the tree filler. Just don’t get too hung up on it’s the thought that counts.)

I tell myself everything is fine. Christmas can be just another day. Or it can be “differently special”—I can make homemade pizza, walk the dog along the beach and through the forest trails, finally watch my DVD copy of “Annie Hall” all the way through, complete a jigsaw puzzle, deep clean the oven. Maybe just different without the special.

So far, everything is fine. I’m even feeling festive. I don’t change the radio station when a Chipmunks Christmas song comes on. I put up a string of lights along the front of the house for the first time in years. I even stood in line to get my dog’s picture taken with Santa. (The helper elf seemed startled when I said I wanted in the photo. You can see for yourself that it meant more to me than my poor pooch. I swear I did not give him a sedative, nor did I load up on rum balls beforehand. Stop the Twitter rumors now.)

I’ve been debating about getting a tree. Probably won’t. I’ve been indoctrinated by Smokey the Bear and firefighters on the news about fire hazards and I’ll be away on my own little adventure for part of the holidays. I’d like to return to a house rather than a pile of soot. Still, even thinking about putting up an askew spruce is a positive step. It shows that Ebenezer and the ghosts of non-Christmas past have been kept at bay.

I’d buy a poinsettia, but it breaks my heart to see it suffer a slow death in the months that follow, leaves dropping rapidly to create a Charlie Brown plant which I finally turf mid-April. Maybe a wreath is the way to go.

Last night I curled up on the sofa with my dog and delighted in every moment of my favorite show in the whole wide world, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”! (Make the Yule-tide gay, indeed!) And I purposely chose the most festively decorated café in town as my writing site this morning. Each time I struggle with a phrase, my eyes look up and are enchanted by the white lights that adorn the pine garlands along the perimeter. Tonight I’m baking shortbread and double chocolate ginger cookies to share with colleagues tomorrow.

Under the right circumstances, I could completely embrace the season. I’m not there yet, but at least I’m not shunning it. I think I’ll head to the pet store and load up on doggy treats to stuff in the stocking I so badly wanted during our office party gift exchange. Everyone else battled for booze. I was totally set on the Santa stocking.

 As the cookies bake this evening, I’ll write a handful of Christmas cards, sparing people the form letter enclosure with news about Aunt Hazel’s shingles and my bird-watching plans for ’14. (Sorry, a holiday Tweet or a Facebook post is not the same.)

Of course, all this tentative merriment could evaporate as the 25^th nears. For now, I’ll keep tapping my toes as José Feliciano sings “Feliz Navidad” and pick up a carton of soy eggnog before hunting down a suitable wreath.

Deck the halls and all that stuff. Fa la la la la la la la la!