How To Learn That Putting Up a Christmas Tree The Second Week of November is Wildly Inappropriate

Full title: How To Learn That Putting Up a Christmas Tree The Second Week of November is Wildly Inappropriate (Even If You're Just Trying To Put Yourself In A Good Mood.)

1. Come home from a week of house sitting in Brooklyn a little worse for the wear; you went out far too often, ate far too little protein, and witnessed all of your friends actively being adults--going to work, going to school--while you sent out resumes and writing into the ether during the sad hours they weren't around to hang out. Also, you miss GoGo.

2. Fall into a little slump for a few days. Let it sink in that the celebration of being done with treatment is over, and it's time to stop being polite, and get real.

3. Briefly consider applying for the Real World in the days you pass in existentialist crisis. Remember that your mom told you if you ever went on Reality Television (and this was even before they were making reality shows about literally everything), she'd disown you. Consider culinary school. Consider beauty school. Consider dog grooming school.

4. Get what might--might--be a good lead in the career-staring direction and perk up a bit. Run with that tiny bit of... percolation (but mostly run from fear of feeling as depressed as you have been) and decide to get into the Christmas spirit a little early this year, since the holidays make you happy and generally warm-feeling towards the rest of the world.

5. Decide to let your parents in on your preemptive cheer. Proclaim "CHRISTMAS IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!" at dinner one night, and that it's time to put up the tree. Scoff when your Dad tells you "You're going to ruin Thanksgiving." Realize you have a partner in crime when your mom cocks her head to the side and nods as she considers the calender on the kitchen wall.

6. Assist your mom as she (obsessively) researches which model Christmas tree to buy online, because this is the year she's finally "allowed" to get a new one that doesn't require 8 hours of set up and shaping. Vehemently argue for colored lights against your mom, who wants a "sophisticated" white-lit tree. Find a company that, amazingly, makes a tree that comes pre-lit with both colored and white lights. Marvel at the wonders of technology. What will they think of next?

7. Tell your mom you're going to put the tree up as soon as it comes. Waiver a little bit on that certain announcement when the tree arrives in two large boxes on your doorstep 3 days later, on the 10th of November. Let the boxes sit in the hallway for 18 hours or so, or until Friday afternoon comes along and you realize what your Friday night is going to be. Realize you're not even a little bit mad that you will be spending it in your pajamas.

8. Put on the Taylor Swift holiday station on Pandora; if you're going to do this, you're going to do it right.

9. End up with 5 pieces that look like they just have to be stacked upon one another.

10. Quickly realize that's not true, and neither was the part of the online description of your new Norway Spruce that promised "easy setup" with "no shaping necessary."

11. Insert the bottom section, section E, into the base. Plug the red "male" (ew?) plug from Section D into the red "female" (like, really?) socket in Section E. Same for the yellow plugs. Wait, why isn't D lighting up? Consult the directions. Maybe Section C has the socket in it. Heft Section C onto the pole. No, no, take that one off, I can't get to the plugs in Section E now...

12. Utter strings of obscenities over the next hour as the Christmas music playing in the background becomes ironic and incredibly annoying. Tell your mom "Santa Baby" is, as its core, a song about date rape, causing a debate that's a nice little distraction from the catastrophe at hand.

13. Take a break on the couch while your mom goes up to speak with customer service. Consider burning the tree. Seriously doubt it when she tells you she thinks she figured it out, but humor her. Feel like you cured cancer (haha) when the appropriate sections of the tree actually light up. Apologize for doubting your mother, you jerk.

14. Finally get it set up. Step back and marvel at your tree, which you are controlling via a small remote. (America: the country where even your fake ass Christmas trees come with remotes.)

15. Be reminded by your mom that "you were the one who wanted to do this!" when you say "NO" to her request to put the ornaments on the tree. Trudge up to the attic and get the large box of ornaments down.

16. Notice as you begin putting them up that the usual nostalgic, magical feeling of handling your favorite Wizard of Oz ornaments can't get through the door because the frustration of putting up this freaking tree is taking up all the space in your living room.

17. Put more than half of the very large amount of ornaments you own on the tree. Hear the garage door open, the signal that your dad is home from work. Trepidatiously lead him into the living room and watch as he shakes his head at the tree.

18. Reassure your mom that the branches are not drooping (even though, now that you look at it, they do seem to be wilting a little with the weight of the ornaments) and beseech her to come eat dinner.

19. Drop your fork when she tells you she wants to return the tree and get the one from Frontgate that has wheels and only two pieces. Note that if it wasn't already gone, any inkling of Christmas cheer you may have started this process with would have just gone out the window.

20. Sit on the couch begrudgingly with a glass of wine as your mom begins to remove ornaments. Finally agree the tree has "bad juju," and take pity on your mom when she unsuccessfully attempts to take the top section off. Sustain scratches to your hands as you wrench--literally wrench--the sections of the tree off one another. Yell at your mom to "HUG IT. HUG IT TIGHTER" as you attempt to tie string around each section of the tree so it can fit back into its box.

21. Refill your wine glass and look sadly at the two large, slightly bulging boxes sitting in the spot where an hour ago, a beautiful (yet extremely annoying) tree had stood.

22. Ruminate on the lessons you could learn from this: that rushing headlong into something and spurring yourself on by the desire for a happiness that you know deep down is more sparkle than substance never works out. That even though you wasted hours setting it up and it's a pain to send it back, holding out for the better product (read: person/job) is the smarter thing to do in the end. But mostly that your dad was right--it's too motha truckin early for Christmas.

22a. Maybe don't change the Tay Swift Pandora station as you go to bed that night.

Asshole tree.