Christmas Tree Reflections

Years ago, when I was first writing creatively, I did a few short Christmas pieces.  They were published in small press outlets.

A couple of them dealt with the Christmas tree itself.  In one, an Aesop type fable comes about through anthropomorphization of the ornaments on the tree.  In another, a letter to a friend, it explores the Christmas tree in terms of the “how’ the ornaments represent.  A friend who gave me an ornaments that aligned with a theme important to me at that time.  An aunt and uncle. . . the only ones in our family willing to ‘waste’ money on special package garnishments for gifts . . . wisely.  They chose sturdy ones which the family [mostly me] converted to tree trim ornaments that in some cased graced the tree for years . . . even decades . . . afterwards.

Where I now live, I’ve never had sufficient storage to dismantle the artificial Christmas tree I put up probably the second year in residence.  So, I’ve simply left the tree in place and stopped lighting it after a certain date each year.  In good years, since I have more trims than I can use at once on this size tree, I’d sometimes dismantle it around Thanksgiving so I could re-trim it in a different way, but I haven’t done that for a few years now.  Traditionally, our family’s tree trimming schedule was the third weekend in Advent:  the weekend of anticipatory joy where in the Catholic church the priestly vestments are rose or pink rather than the penitentiary purple or violet of the other three weekends of Advent.

The date I stop lighting the tree varies depending on circumstance.  Perhaps around January 6^th.  Perhaps Candlemas [February 2^nd].  I know one year, though I’m not sure that it was in this location or in a prior residence, when Lent came quite early that year, I actually continued to light an artificial tree until the day before Ash Wednesday.

Last year was an especially tough year at Christmas.  To my best recollection, I never lit the tree or played Christmas music except, perhaps, a part of the Christmas Day program on my favored radio station.

I was between cars at that time, so I didn’t even hear the Christmas music I normally would be forced to hear while driving around on errands.

Which set of circumstances overall means that this year, as I light the tree even though it has been up in the same form for at least a couple years, I see it with fresh eyes.

And I see both continuation and progress.  So much heritage.

In our family, a focus on the authentic meaning of Christmas in tree trimming always had priority.

Our tree was, as it were, double-themed.

The first theme involved the Nativity.

I inherited many family ornaments, but not our Nativity ornament.  It was a glass globe with the Holy Child in a manger.  But, one year, not long after leaving home, I was fortunate to find a similar piece in a Christmas shop.  This one has Mary and Joseph, also, inside the glass globe. 

Eventually, we built the entire tee around this ornament;  adding the various other symbols of the Nativity as we had the ornaments to do so:  stars, angels, stable animals, birds.

Hand crafted pieces figured prominently in the overall scene:  from waxed paper stars to embroidered angels on a felt backing.

This general Nativity theme centered the tree, with the glass globe ornament at eye level and radiated outward over both the vertical and horizontal center of the front of the tree.

The second sub-theme was all the secular motifs associated with Christmas.  Crafts, here, were also of importance.

The secular theme radiated outwards from the sacred, more towards the top, bottom, sides, and rear of the Christmas tree.  Bridging the two themes, as it were, were such ornaments as music scrolls with Christmas sheet music displayed.

When I gazed on the tree after the first time I lit it, I was again struck by the “who” the ornamentation on this tree represented.  These include people long passed away, as well as people I lost touch with over time such as church youth group members I had volunteered with and who had sold crafted ornaments at church bazaars during various years.

I was once again struck by the theme I had focused one of those early short stories around:  that for me, in many ways the tree trims on this tree more make for “who” is on the tree than for “what” is on it in terms of its ornamentation.

Rather a nice sentiment for the Christmas season.