CORPORATE CHRISTMAS TREE

In honor of the Christmas season, I take a detour on my early morning errands.  The sun isn't quite up yet, so I decide to drive by the big Christmas tree at the office park down the street.

To understand my excitement, know the trees that used to be set up there were always huge, rivaling the ones in Boston.  For some reason the tradition stopped many years ago, but the building owners revive it this year.

This is very exciting!

There is a tree lighting (which I do not attend because of the crowds it gathers), and I hesitate to drive by it on weekend nights because it will be mobbed (like it used to be), right?  Right?!

When I drive into the office park at 6:50 on a weekend morning, I am disoriented.  I don't see anything out of the ordinary; no giant tree and no giant ornaments and no kiddie ride area and no place to drop off Toys for Tots.  There is a statue of a large sock and one of what looks suspiciously like Mark Hamill in the most recent Star Wars movie.

And there is a tree.  It's a regular tree, much like I would see in someone's yard.  I drive around a few times.  Is this it?  Is this all there is?  In the scheme of things, it's probably a perfectly fine tree and decorative display.  However, the hype from the press that the Giant Corporate Christmas Tree Is Back turns out to be just that: Hype.

My disappointment is really inconsequential.  Christmas isn't about corporate consumerism, but I cannot help being let down by the reality of a normal-sized tree being touted as the same as the trees of days gone by because those trees were always magnificent. 

It's not the same.

Maybe it shouldn't be the same, and that's fine.  But don't sell me a bill of goods and pull the bait-and-switch.  That just makes you look like Scrooge.

Merry Christmas, Eve, everyone.   At the risk of having a stake of holly through my heart and being boiled in my own pudding: God bless us, every one.