To Tree or Not to Tree

I keep debating whether or not I want to put up my Christmas tree this year.

The first year after Jeff died I didn't put the tree up.  I couldn't bear to see all of the ornaments that reflected our life together: first Christmas as a married couple, first Christmas in the house together, ornaments I bought on trips we went on together, the ornaments from our honeymoon, and just all of the other ornaments collected in the 10 years we were together.

Last year, I put my tree up.  I cried a little while unwrapping the ornaments and putting them on the tree, but I also spoke to Wyoming the majority of the time I was decorating so that helped a lot.  He listened to the stories from the most touching ornaments and kind of held my hand through it all (as well as one can hold a hand over the phone).  I had also collected some new ornaments through my travels with Wyoming so it was nice to relive those new memories with him as well.  I have to be honest though, it was a little strange to mingle ornaments from my life with Jeff and ornaments from my life with Wyoming on the same tree just two years after Jeff died.  Stupid guilt monster.

This year, I need to go over to my parents house to decorate their Christmas tree since my mom is on hospice and my dad has never been any use regarding decorating for Christmas.  I think that's a lot to handle, decorating two Christmas trees.  Plus, I will be leaving for Wyoming two days after Christmas to spend New Years with Wyoming.  I don't want to have to take down the tree the day after Christmas, especially since I'll be pretty tired from being in charge of organizing Christmas this year and I definitely don't want to deal with taking it down when I get back from Wyoming right before starting second semester.

But I feel like not putting up the tree is a step back.  Like I made a huge step forward last year in putting up the tree and not putting it up this year may be going backwards?

I don't know what I want to do.  I heard recently that the best thing to do in a stressful situation when you're not sure of the next step is to just sit and do nothing, not to plow forward just to do something.

So I'm going to sit on this one for a little while and hopefully the answer will come to me soon.