This will be the last essay that I write before the New Year. I have some topics and ideas for content all lined up in my outgoing file, but in order to keep myself focused on family and friends and gratitude for this holiday season, I’m taking a little break. I hope this essay finds you looking forward to your own traditions and making new ones. Thanks for your dedicated readership! That’s a huge present for me!
Likely, as you read this, your home is decorated by colorful lights, tableaus of singing carolers, snowmen, snow globes, variations of Santa Claus, even a little scene made of tiny statues depicting a mother and father leaning over a newborn infant in an animal food trough surrounded by a cast of animal visitors, a winged and hovering chubby baby and three sagely old dudes bearing kingly gifts (and apparently, rubber cigars) and possibly a large, formerly living pine tree standing in a bowl of murky water. That's basically what our house looks like, too. At least it did in previous years.
This year, all of the above is in place, as usual, however, instead of a formerly live pine tree, we repurposed a smaller decorative plastic tree lit with swirly fiber optic lights and surrounded it with a conical base of books set in a kind of circular barricade and draped with colorful lights. Heaven knows we have enough books between us to manage at least three more such displays, but for us, this was plenty. Micki came up with the idea and rendered it perfectly even though such a display was a withdrawal of our former tree-related decorating.
Christmas trees are ubiquitous at this time of year. Recently there has been a resurgence of the live tree as the centerpiece for holiday trimming. For a brief and deeply tacky time, faux trees were quite hip and popular, especially since they were less likely to go up in roaring conflagrations like inverted rockets if they got too dry. Some of the fake trees were quite convincing (at a distance) and came pre-lit with flashing lights and “flocking” which made them appear to have bits of freshly fallen snow on their plastic boughs. Like with everything lately, costs have gone up and a similarly-sized fake tree could cost up to double what a real fir tree might cost. Certainly, that’s a one-time expenditure that ideally ought to give the frugal buyer years of undimmed holiday exuberance.
For a cheap-o like me, those premium prices pose a tall order for an obviously plastic tree that tries and fails to give the charm and sincerity of a real tree. Sure, it is simpler to set up and you can keep it up far longer, switching out the colored lights and ornaments to keep up with the New Year’s holiday onslaught. Red lights and hearts for Valentine’s day; green lights and Irish-themed beer coasters for St. Patrick's Day; multi-colored lights and bunnies and eggs for Easter; read-white-and-blue lights and flags and tiny foil fireworks for Independence Day. Just shop near the front of your super mega Walmart and you can decorate your yearlong tree any way you wish. If you can hang in there, it will soon be Christmas again and no need to root through the attic for the beat up and torn box the faux tree came in. It just depends on if you’re willing to forgo taking the kids to a tree farm or lot, miss out on imbibing hot cocoa with plenty of super tiny marshmallows and the bright, fresh smell of a live tree in your house and sap on your hands.
The departure from our yearslong tradition of loading a Frasier fir tree on the roof of our small SUV the Friday after Thanksgiving and setting it up in our den (along with pictures of me cutting the twine and someone helping make sure it’s straight in the heavy treestand) came as we drove to our middle son’s in-laws early in November. We were anticipating our now one month-old granddaughter's arrival, and we knew that we would be spending Christmas with her and her newly-minted parents at their forested abode. With our youngest traveling to be with his sweetheart for the holidays and our oldest living the busy schedule of a young, work-a-day laborer, we knew our house wouldn't be the same nexus of smiling and cheery family and visitors as in previous years. All this made rational sense, but it still wasn’t easy.
Right over the hill from our house at the mouth of the driveway that leads to our YMCA is a gigantic, three-storey blow-up snowman that heralds our town’s largest tree lot. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning when I head there to work out, or any time that we traverse the town roads to our usual grocery shopping destinations, the glossy, dark green trees under the sprawling tents seem to beckon to us seductively. As we drove to and from the farm where our daughter-in-law’s parents live, we passed thickly planted tree farms and countless family vehicles stuffed with happy, rosy-cheeked passengers and loaded with a twine-wrapped and strapped tree on the roof. The temptation to have a tree in the house was super strong. It pained us to go without. We helped each other by reminding ourselves of the commitment having a freshly cut tree requires. Since we would be away, a big green tree in the house would be a challenging prospect. We had to stay strong.
Micki helpfully pointed out that Frasier firs need to be watered regularly if they are to stay shiny and pliable during the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years and maybe beyond. As the son of a lifelong fireman, I mentioned the hazards of keeping a drying pine tree in the house unattended. They are like mega torches and can render a home to smoking cinders in no time. She explained that our two otherwise self-sufficient cats were quite prone to chaos and mayhem while alone and bored without their human companions to cater to their every whim. We could come home to a fallen tree, previously precious dashed ornaments, gallons of spilled tree water or far worse. I said if Hal or Freya (our feline friends) knocked over our book-tree hybrid, it could be easily cleaned up once we unpacked and settled from our visit. No chance of smashed ornaments, a very low chance of the fake fiber optics catching fire. We both nodded slowly, sadly. “It's true”, she said. “It's true,” I agreed.
“Likewise”, one of us stammered breathlessly as we passed yet another tree farm offering free cocoa and a complimentary wreath of fresh greens with the purchase of a tree, “what’s the point of having a real tree if no one is there to enjoy it?” Again we nodded slowly, murmuring how true this was.
We usually put our presents to one another under the tree for us to open on Christmas Eve (Santa’s gifts for everyone are placed by the hearth by Mr. Kringle himself in fancy red bags and named stockings to be opened Christmas Morning). We knew that those packages would have been sent to their respective prospective openers or stashed away in the hatch of our car next to our travel-ready pups rather than under a tree. A tree with no presents under it is rather a poor and sad sight (unless, of course, it’s after the festive rendings and tearings.) After the season ends, I carry the newly undecorated tree to my wood pile to dry out and be used as kindling for the coming fire pit weather.
So, we continue to comfort one another with rational reasonings and elegant explanations. Once we’re gathered around our granddaughter’s first Christmas tree, cuddling her and carefully opening boxes and packages so as not to wake her, should she choose to slumber in the firelight, the last thing we’ll be thinking about is whether or not we have a real or fake tree at our house. The kids live in the midst of countless acres of woods positively marching with evergreen trees. The fresh winter air there will far outpace anything one tree can pump into our nose and lungs. It will be an absolute joy to share that time with the kids and help them start their own traditions. We’ll still bake cookies and cook too much food and I will make my venerable aunt’s challah bread recipe and we will eat like conquerors. Not having a tree this year is a small sacrifice to what we will enjoy making new traditions and expanding our own joyfulness in the process this season.
If I’m honest, I think we both really love the idea of being free to adapt and change our traditions as necessary. There may be many Christmases yet-to-be where new and wonderful traditions and experiences await us. This year’s is plenty new for us and we’re just thrilled to pieces to be spending it with the wee bairn and her mommy and daddy. Trees are cool, but as long as we have each other, just what that Christmas looks like—how it is decorated—is really moot.
Whatever your traditions and whatever the composition of your festive arboreal decorations, I want to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy and healthy holiday season. May the lights in the darkness, the joyful fellowship, the exchange of gifts and stories and food and memories remind you and yours of just how good we have things and instill in all of us grateful hearts and a sense of unity with one another. Good Yule!
