O Christmas Tree

As I write these words in early December, what is left of our small Thanksgiving turkey sits in the fridge holding one more meal for two. Our Christmas tree, artificial this year, stands in the corner of the living room waiting for the ornaments that will turn it into the story of our family life. When this column appears in January, the tree will be packed away, the holidays over, a brand new year begun. Time moves on, children grow up, memories fade, and our need for concrete reminders of what once was remains stronger than ever. That is why we have reunions, photo albums, rituals of our own making and, for many at this time of year, Christmas trees. For one family I know, it’s a New Years’ tree. If you love a tree in your house at the holidays, you don’t even have to celebrate Christmas.

We always celebrated Christmas, and we always had a tree, tucked in the corner of the living room in my childhood home, just far enough away from the kerosene stove to prevent a fire. Trees were cheap back then. When my mother was a kid and her church celebrated the holiday in January, they were free for the taking from the discards at the curb. Money was tight in a blended family of 13, and my mother learned to economize.

When I was old enough to be given the task of buying the family tree, she gave me three dollars and said, “Make sure it’s a good one, full, plenty of branches, no bare spots.” My friend Ken was the first to drive in our crowd, and the two of us would go tree hunting on Christmas eve when we figured we could get a good deal from sellers who wanted to clear their lots.

One year, with six dollars between us, we concocted a story about having been sent out by our college fraternity to buy two trees to decorate the frat house for the annual Christmas party. Never mind that we were still in high school, we did come away with two pretty nice trees. Three dollars apiece was a bargain price to pay even then, and now it is practically a giveaway with the cost of a single tree easily reaching $100.

Many years later when my wife and I were just starting out in a rented apartment, we always bought a real live tree for Christmas. We would check out the lots that sprang up close to home and others farther afield, always looking for the perfect tree – not too wide and not too short, able to fit into the corner of the living room and about as tall as my outstretched arm reaching for the ceiling.

Sellers tied our trees to the roof of our car sometimes more securely than others. For a while, we favored a farm about an hour from home on a busy highway, and when the tree jiggled on the roof, I assured my wife that we were safe because it had been tied by a trained professional. Or so we hoped.

For decorations, we didn’t have ornaments handed down from our parents, but I remember the tinsel, long, thin strands of shiny silver that you could drape carefully over the branches, one strand at a time. You could also use my mother’s technique of tossing a handful of the stuff up to the higher reaches of the tree and letting it lie where it lands. We draped carefully.

The years passed and we ditched the tinsel but kept the brightly colored baubles and balls. My wife’s handmade ornaments and souvenirs of our travels made the tree our own, colorful birds made from Mexican yarn, animal shapes studded with colored glass from Thailand, a tower of London guard. When our children came along, we started buying each of them a special ornament every year, marking a milestone or particular interest of that time in their lives.

All of this comes rushing back as we start the ritual of trimming our Christmas tree. With the lights in place, the tree stands ready for the star at the top, the long strand of red wooden beads winding down and around its circumference, and the ornaments. We place the red ones farther back, leaving room at the front for the those with an artistic flair and the ones that tell the story of our lives.

The special children’s ornaments are still here – a miniature basketball, sneakers, some trains and a gold star with our son’s third grade class picture pasted in its center. A skier, ice skater, and a young girl absorbed in a book tell some of our daughter’s story. The children are grown now with homes and trees of their own. There are grandchildren too with special ornaments and boundless energy anticipating the arrival of Santa and the presents he will leave under the tree. It’s just an artificial tree this year, but that doesn’t matter. It serves its purpose giving us a record of our past, a focal point of our present joy, and a beacon of hope for the future.