This weekend my daughters, ages 7 and 11, and I planned to put up the Christmas tree. Easy enough. Except that I couldn’t find our tree.

We used to do a real tree ’til my first Christmas as a single mom. That year I almost died trying to get an eight-foot tall Christmas tree off the top of my SUV by myself. Seriously. The sight of me laid out on the ground, pinned to the driveway under a Christmas tree must have been quite the Hallmark-card moment for any of my neighbors who happened to be watching. I, on the other hand, was not feeling the slightest bit merry after that.

The next year I bought my first fake tree. One box. With what seemed like three hundred separate limbs to put in place. I spent about eight hours adjusting each fake branch. That tree was Martha-Stewart perfect. I remembered, though, thinking how fitting it was that I had a fake Christmas tree because I had such ambivalent feelings about the holidays. I used to love Christmas time, but when you have to spend a large chunk of it away from your kids because they are with their Dad…well, let’s just say it sucks some of the magic out of it.

When me and the girls moved in July I had a moment of Christmas inspiration that can only come in July, when the thought of actually putting my holiday-spirited plan into motion was a half a year away. I decided I was going to give away the fake tree and go back to the real kind next year. I was ready to take back the real Christmas. Or so I thought in the heat of that July moment.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I rummaged around the attic looking for my convenient box-o-Christmas-cheer, forgetting about that inspirational July moment. When I remembered what I had done, I panicked. I don’t want to spend another $200 on a tree. But I also don’t want to end up in my driveway underneath another live one. With such a huge decision in front me, I did the only thing one could do. Avoid the problem entirely. Maybe they won’t notice that we haven’t put up a tree. I decorated the outside with lights the first week in December. I put up all of our other Christmas decorations the second week. Maybe they will be on such a continuous sugar high from all of the Christmas cookies they won’t care.

But it was futile. My girls are no dummies. The white elephant in the room, or lack thereof, could no longer be ignored. When are we going to put up the tree? Huh? Huh? Huh? The question stumped me. Soon, I kept murmuring. It is strange the kind of things that stump you once you have kids. Could I really bring myself to say, geez, guys, do we really need to put a tree this year? Obviously, the answer is no. That would be like saying… Hey, kids, I decided that this year we are going to completely ignore your birthday. What do you think?

So…at some point my resolve to be resolve-less cracked and I weakly proclaimed that we would put up our Christmas tree this weekend.

We ventured out on Saturday to shop for a new fake tree. I had apparently waited 50% longer than most people because the fake trees were now 50% off. I plunked down my $100 for my new Christmas-in-a-box and quietly applauded the fact that my indecisiveness had finally paid off. Saturday night the girls and I put on our favorite ipod mix of Christmas songs and I made hot chocolate for them and poured a big glass of wine for myself and we decorated the Hell out of our brand new fake tree. My littlest said it was the prettiest tree we ever had. (Sounds nice, I know. but she says that every year).

I realized last night after the girls went to bed and I sat in the living room in the glow of the lights that the reason I waited so long to put up a tree was not because I was avoiding the fake/real decision. It was because it still hurts. Post-divorce Christmas is still hard for me. The everyday of divorce-ness I have gotten used to. You can keep yourself distracted by the details of just living. But Christmas is all about the special. All about the family unit. And no matter how much I have gotten used to being a no-daddy family unit, it is the holidays that still make me feel un-whole.

Fake or real. It doesn’t really matter. I dread being in my house alone with that Christmas tree glowing it’s constant reminder that this is Christmas. Be jolly, damnit. That tree mocks me.

No matter what, Christmas is still bittersweet for me.