...except after "C"

With the exception of 1981 and 1982, when my family celebrated Christmas in the Philippines (where the only coniferous trees I saw were a day's drive away in the mountainous region near Baguio City), I have decorated a [formerly] live tree every December since I was born. I wish I could get all nostalgic and tell the story of trudging 3 miles through knee-deep snow to cut down my very own tree with a handsaw. Instead, I will tell you that for as long as I can remember, I have gone with my family to some local merchant of [formerly] live Christmas trees on one of the first Sundays after Thanksgiving and selected an evergreen to grace our living room with the aroma of fresh pine, the twinkling of a thousand (actually 2*300+3*200=1200) little lights, and the gaze of a little angel on the top of the Christmas tree.

Well, last year we received as a gift a beautiful 7.5 foot fake Christmas tree. It's not fake in the sense that it is imaginary. However, it is fake in the sense that it doesn't have gaping holes or an impossibly crooked trunk, you don't have to get pine sap smeared all over your sleeves when you water it, its branches will not bend and snap under the weight of an ordinary Christmas ball, it was never home to a denizen of wild creatures, it will not drop needles or drip pine sap all over the house, and it will not be instantly engulfed in flames when it has been left out until well into March.

I put it up last night.

Please add the following to my Christmas list: a pine-scented pillow.
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