blogger profile

Margaret Pilarski

editorial assistant

i'm a feminist, and if you're reading this then you are too, you just might not know it yet. i like to eat cheese and travel, but i'm usually broke and/or spending my money on shoes and cocktail rings. i love dogs, rain, and driving offensively (and putting the last comma in a listed series). i'm se...

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i'm a big girl now

margo pilar

it’s a big holiday. it’s the first year with a tree of my own. both it and my house are crooked, but i think it came out nice enough... what an odd feeling to have a thing which represents the ultimate household necessity. or is it an accessory? i feel old. 

what i loved about getting the tree wasn’t the feeling that i wasn’t an adult for having one, but that i was a kid for being able to pick out just the one i exactly wanted, for finding one with even branches and a good height, one that would look good with lights and glittery balls, with a tippy top point that deserved something super. i wandered around the tree lot and found one without a price tag (free?!) and then haggled with a high school girl over the price. $30 got me a tree and some biceps to toss it up on the jeep.

one more hour later i was headed home with lights and ornaments and tinsel and other necessary holiday doodads. like a kid in a candy store, i had run around target salivating over the pieces of my ideal tree. but it was the slowly-growing adult in me that said “you do not need 6 strands of lights, 2 will do.” “you do not need 4 boxes of crystal ornaments, those bright metallic ones are fine.” the kid margaret let me pick out random penguin and pig ornaments, but adult margaret stopped short of ornaments that combined feathers/glitter/disco ball mirrors.

on the way home, other people were excited too, like the 4 inebriated men attempting to cross the street to a bar who hooted and hollered like primates and pointed at my treed roof.... if they could have high-fived me through the window, they would have. glancing up through the sunroof to make sure the tree was still there, i bounced around in my seat, eager to see it in the living room instead.

this holiday i hope everyone remembers that even if they are doing adulty things, this is a season of fun and joy and nobody knows fun and joy more than yourself at the age of 6.

best wishes to all, and to all a good night!