It’s 36° on my kitchen porch this morning. The sun is bright coming through the mostly naked tree tops the other side of my shop. The coffee in my hand is hot and perfect. My left hand is in my jeans pocket and my shoulders shiver at the cold air trying to find a path underneath my collar.

The bustle of Thanksgiving is over.

I am standing here searching my inner self, looking for the spirit of Christmas decorating. The kitchen door is not quite closed, and I can hear Dean Martin from inside the house singing about Rudolph. Bing Crosby croons out the melody of White Christmas. That’s not going to happen on little old Pine Mountain. Burl Ives wants me to have a Holly Jolly Christmas.

I have the music on because I need inspiration. It’s not that I’m sad or anything like that. I’m not sour on Christmas. No way I’m turning into the Grinch. It’s just that a single guy with more than a few miles on the engine under the hood is not exactly skilled in the art of holiday ornamentation.

When I was maybe 14, I had the idea that I would be in charge of finding the family Christmas tree. We had used live trees from Dorsey’s Nursery, which after Christmas would get planted somewhere around the house. Several times we used a fresh-cut fir from the tree lot. We even had the silver foil tree for a few years with the multi-colored light wheel that made the tree glow red and blue and green and gold in front of the living room picture window.

I wanted something more tasteful.

My plan was to go to the woods and cut the perfect tree. Bow saw in hand, I headed off in search of awesomeness. Had I known then what I know now about trees I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. Georgia is not the land of spruce and fir. What we have are pines and a few ragged cedars.

After an hour or so I realized that I was going to have to get creative. There were no perfect Christmas trees on our farm.

I think the most creative Christmas tree I’ve ever seen was a few years ago when I worked at Callaway Gardens. We had some over-exuberant holiday guests staying in one of the cottages. The Christmas party got loud. There was evidently an extraordinary amount of beer-induced cheer going around during the middle of the night. Security was called and our guests were asked to take their celebration elsewhere.

When I got to work, I was called over to help assess the damage.

“What do you need me for? I’m not in charge of the cottages.” I was puzzled.

The radio crackled. “No. You need to come see this.”

“10-4.”

Inside the cottage living room stood a dogwood tree that was not a part of the normal décor. It stood almost 8ft. tall, leaned against the wall in the corner and had been stripped down to twigs. And over every twig, our holiday guests had stuck an empty beer can. Mostly red, blue, and silver. There must have been 80 cans on that tree.

I was curious. “Where’d they get the tree?”

Outside, near the steps, was a gnarly two-inch stump. They had pushed the tree over, hacked at it with a kitchen knife, and twisted this little dogwood until it surrendered.

Large amounts of beer can evidently inspire the creative process.

So, I’m standing in the woods beyond the lake where I know the small pines are thick. This one’s too tall. This one could work but it’s naked on one side. This one’s too short. This one’s too thin.

That’s when it occurred to me that I would have to figure out a way to make a Christmas tree out of what I had to work with. I selected a specimen pine that had the right shape. It only had eight branches on it, but I had a plan. I cut the tree and then collected an armload of pine branches to take back with me.

“Don’t you think that’s a little thin?” Mama was not thrilled.

“I got this.”

She shook her head and went back to her sewing machine.

I moved the table and lamp out from in front of the living room window. I retrieved the tree stand from the attic and after several attempts at turning the little thumb screws, I finally got it to stand up straight. I stood back and could see my cousin’s house across the road right through the tree.

I got a roll of baling wire, pliers, and wire cutters from the smokehouse. All my extra pine boughs were piled on the living room floor. The scent of pine filled the air, and I went to work. Trimming a branch here. Tying an extra branch to the trunk there. A support wire where needed. Little by little my perfect Christmas tree began to appear in front of my eyes.

Although Mama went with it, I think she appreciated the well-intentioned effort, my tree was perhaps the ugliest Christmas tree ever to grace a living room for the holidays. Two weeks before Christmas the cut branches began to wilt. The wire began to sag under the weight of the lights and ornaments. Brown became the new color of Christmas.

As I lean against the porch post this morning, coffee in hand, I am questioning my decorating skills. Marshall helped me get the Christmas tree out of the attic on Sunday afternoon. The lights are twinkling. The angel sits atop the highest plastic branch. The nativity scene is laid out on the side table, but other than that the house is barren of the usual avalanche of decorations that pour over every shelf and counter and fireplace mantel.

Louis Armstrong is on the radio. His horn dancing. His gravelly voice jazzing up the lyrics. “There’s old St. Nick playing a lick on his peppermint stick.”

The spirit is stirring as I drop the folding stairs to the attic. Some of the boxes are labeled with a black magic marker. “Mantel pieces.” “Extra Lights.” The edge of a large wreath pokes out of a box that is too small. Plastic kitchen trash bags bulge with hidden pieces of our Christmas past.

Looking through some of these boxes, two things occur to me. I am the owner of too many decorations, some of which predate the Napoleonic War. It may be time to upgrade a few things. One worn out Santa looks like his beard has seen better days. Also, I should invest in plastic tubs for storage. The Huggies diaper box from 1986 is barely holding it together.

The truth is, I love Christmas. I love the feel of the house when the decorations are finally set out. I don’t go “all in” like we used to. Somebody has to put all this stuff away. But I am inspired to bring back old memories and make new ones.

The boxes are scattered around me. I take a deep breath. Let the memories begin.

No beer required.