He wants to get on the ladder. He has always wanted to get on the ladder. He was born, this child, wanting to be on the ladder. Candela, my wife calls him, which literally means “candle” or “flame” but in common Cuban usage means, well, a kid who wants to be riding a laundry basket down the stairs, a kid who has a frequent-flyer card at the after-hours emergency orthopedist, a kid who, yes, wants to be on the ladder.

Decorating the dogwood out front each Christmas is, then, a delicate negotiation between, Hey, do y’all want to help? and, Oh, wait — no, not yet; not without a parent; not that high, Sweetie; please be careful. I don’t know exactly when we started, but I can remember our older son, quite little, on the ladder, which means that Nico, our younger, was probably up there at an age that would raise eyebrows.

The dogwood — Julia’s dogwood, according to my neighbor, Julia being one of a pair of sisters who once lived in our house — is definitely 15 or 20 feet tall. The lower branches are easy enough; the higher branches, for years, were danger-adjacent. We decorate Julia’s dogwood blue because once, after one Christmas long ago, I saw a bunch of blue shatterproof ornaments for something like 80 percent off at a big box, and thought, Hmm.

As it turns out, “shatterproof” is mostly a term of art: Delivery trucks hit the tree constantly, and we toss shattered ornaments into the city bin throughout December. I buy more discounted blue ornaments every year. We replace the shattered ones on the weekends. We decorate and redecorate all season long.

• • •

Place the child, then, on the ladder, reaching up into the tree, hanging shiny blue ornaments from the highest branches he can get to. Make him 5, 6 years old. Place the tantrum next on the timeline: No, you may not stand above that step; no, that’s too high; yes, I do have to hold on to you; no, let’s let Daddy do the rest.

But even Daddy cannot reach the very, very top, not even with the neighbor’s very fancy, even more dangerous ladder. So we invent something fairly ingenious: the non-saw telescoping handle of a tree saw coupled with whatever the proper name is for a peony stand thingy (you know, the green wire cage that keeps your peonies from collapsing after they bloom). We blue-tape the stand to the saw handle, and now we can reach even the highest branches.

The Perrys trim their dogwood tree with blue ornaments in keeping with tradition: Every year, the author also hangs his grandma’s blue Christmas lights to celebrate the family’s Scottish heritage. photograph by Maria West Photography

It’s beautiful. The tree glistens on sunny days. It’s daytime decoration. But it takes forever.

It takes forever, that is, until the year the younger child is 10. The older child is given to occasional interest in Christmas decoration, but the younger child, the ladder child, has always been all-in. The year he’s 10 — last year — is the year he’s suddenly grown a few inches, suddenly seems to know where his arms and legs are, and suddenly, rather than being a hazard, is a true help. Why is this not taking forever? his father wonders as the younger child directs ladder placement and movement, blazing up and down the rungs, hanging blue ornament after blue ornament. The candela is in charge.

The ornaments go up in record time. We only need the tree saw/peony thing for the last few, and the child can operate that invention, too. It is, as they say, a Christmas miracle.

Nico is not just invested but also truly joyful about decorating the dogwood, a real partner.

I love decorating the dogwood — or rather, I love having it decorated. We skipped it the year Nico was 9 because we ran out of time and energy, and even though we said it was fine, it wasn’t. I missed it. Neighbors missed it. It was such a joy to decorate it again last year, and to have this kid be not just invested but also truly joyful about the whole thing, tantrum-free, a real partner. And I love this part: The tree doesn’t drop its last burgundy leaves until a week or so after Thanksgiving, so the dogwood decorating comes after the lights go up on the house, after Christmas has started in earnest, but before we’re checking our lists twice.

I don’t know how long this window with the little one will last — I blinked and he was 10, so I assume I’ll blink again and he’ll be, what, coming home from college? But when he does, we’ll get the ladder out, and the giant bin of bargain ornaments. We’ll make a pot of coffee and go out there and decorate the tree. No, no, he’ll say. Not like that. And I hope he’ll climb up on the ladder and show me how.