Force of habit

A long time ago, in the middle of an average day, in an average week, while I was doing average things, my husband showed up unannounced, with a buddy and an upright piano. Someone decided it wasn’t needed anymore, and someone else volunteered to give it a home, and the next thing you know I had two dudes shoving furniture around in my living room to make way for the new addition.

The kids had been getting by with a decent electric model, but it lacked an eight-octave keyboard. A real piano was a serious upgrade, one I would come to fully appreciate. In that moment, however, had you been on the other side of the paper-thin walls of our rental apartment, you would have heard the unmistakable tone of an unhappy woman.

It’s not that I couldn’t see value in the replacement instrument. I just wasn’t prepared for the upheaval that came with it. Even though I hadn’t been doing anything particularly important, the sudden eruption in my space made me feel irritated and chaotic. I needed a five-minute transition warning. I had myself a merry little tantrum.

I admit, I am a creature of habit. I crave a certain level of predictability and need more than a moment to adjust to changes of plan. Candles are lit before dinner is served. The dishes are washed before I turn in for the night. I drink green tea with heavy cream late in the morning and pack a thermos of it when I have to hit the road early.

I’m no Howard Hughes. Routine is a preference not an albatross. But, for me, it makes appointments simpler, decision-making faster, and it creates a daily rhythm that, ironically, I find liberating. Life being what it is, though, my druthers aren’t always in style. That, or they’re utterly unworkable. I can’t and don’t expect to always have it my way, and I’d rather adapt than continue to slam my habits against the piano in the room.

Never is that kind of punch-rolling more predictably necessary than during the winter holidays, when work schedules explode with vacation-influenced deadlines, social commitments roll through like earthquake tremors, and we take up shopping like an Olympic sport. Traditions have a way of running roughshod over reality, but I think there are times when we benefit by keeping some, here and there.

This season, motivated by a visit from a sister-in-law, I flung Christmas decorations into place earlier than I might have otherwise. It turned out that the hardest part was hauling the boxes down the stairs. After that, it was just a matter of time. I knew where to put the assortment of snowmen, the angels, the grouping of Santa figurines. I’ve had them forever; they always go in the same spots. This is my second holiday with the pieces I saved from my mother’s collection, before the estate sale, before we closed the door to my parent’s last earthly home for the last time. Setting those out wasn’t quite so poignant now that they have a place of their own.

We nearly lost the Christmas tree. We were too late to find anything suitable at two usual locations, and a third operation wasn’t open when we expected it to be. While we waited to fit in another shopping opportunity, we asked ourselves whether we should even bother. For the first time ever, neither of our kids will spend any part of the holidays at home. They live in distant places, and we were all together just a few months back. Since there are, as yet, no plans to populate the house with party guests, we wondered who would know, or care, if we skipped the tree this year.

I would. It might have made practical sense, but I knew all my ritual instincts would turn that vacancy in the living room into a more pervasive kind of emptiness. Soon enough, I’d be feeling sorry for the red felt bear with the movable arms and legs who missed out on his once-a-year chance to come alive.

I selected a Douglas fir. Like always, my man-elf set it up and strung the sparkly, white lights, but he left the ornament-hanging up to me. It’s a well-worn process: Larger ones go first, smaller, more breakable ones next, and finally the exceptional few which are held until the end, displacing those with less sentimental value if necessary. Some are vintage glass and spectacularly fragile, some are handmade - frosted pinecones and partridge-in-a-pear-tree gourds. While I worked, I thought about themed trees I’ve seen in other homes, with their color-coordinated balls and shimmery ribbons. They look so grown up, like they figured out who they wanted to be in life and, by god, set out to be it.

There is something to be said for accepting change with grace. But, for the time being, I’m going to tell myself that those mature, matching trees would be relieved to know that a little Douglas fir with a lifetime of mismatched ornaments, including one bright-red bear, will be here if they need it.

~Elizabeth