Hello dear ones,
Remember when I said we were going to put up our Christmas tree early? Well that didn’t happen. I was too busy snuggling down & sleeping under the dark blanket of lengthening night. Instead, my husband put up our Christmas tree Sunday night while I made dinner & it twinkled, unadorned, until Friday night, when I had a burst of energy & decorated it.
Matt & I both grew up with real trees. But this year, we weren’t sure a real tree was in our budget, so my sweet mom bought us a beautiful artificial tree in Target’s pre-holiday sale. I bought a little “Cypress & Fir” scented candle in a frosted glass jar for Matt, who was feeling nostalgic for the smell of the Douglas Firs we’ve gotten the past few years.
As a little girl, my parents took us out to Whispering Pines Christmas tree farm where we wandered through fields of trees until we found the perfect one. It was at least five acres, I’d say, which felt huge as a child. It was divided by a pine woods. The evergreens towered above us as we crossed the floor of reddish-gold needles. There was a lot of space between the trees, not like the oak forests I’m used to. There was also a pond toward the back of the farm. Often, or at least often in the memory of my childhood wonder, there was snow on the ground. We’d decide on the right tall, fluffy White Pine & then Mr. Niebold, the farmer, who seemed to be a very old man even then, would come cut it down & load it on his trailer. My sister Michelle & I would sit next to the tree & ride back across the farm to the driveway, our feet dangling, bouncing with big smiles on our faces. It was magic.
My first Christmas living away from home was the year after I graduated college. I was working as a newspaper reporter & I made peanuts. So I went to the Dollar Tree & bought some very inexpensive old-fashioned looking ornaments: shiny red houses trimmed with sparkling white “snow,” a couple glittery birds sitting in their nests that you clip to the tree, dangling plastic red rubies, & silver & white shiny icicles. I bought pipe cleaners & metallic beads & fashioned little candy canes using the beads as stripes. I saved my apartment’s beer bottle caps & cut out tiny circles of scrap paper, which I glued to the inside of the bottle caps. I decorated the paper circles further with tiny star stickers & made curly hooks for them out of the pipe cleaners & beads, which I hot glued to fasten them. I bought cheap glittery garland & used a dollar store star ornament as a tree topper.
I lived in an old house in Galesburg, Illinois, that had been converted into an upstairs & downstairs apartment. Our dining room had a picture window, & that’s where I put my little tree, elevated on a table. When I posted a picture of it on Facebook, my tech-savvy grandpa commented that he thought it was beautiful. He knew a thing or two about making do with little, having grown up with 7 siblings, living in the back of his parents’ restaurant. I felt proud that he liked my little tree.
When Matt & I got our first full-sized, real Christmas tree, he unboxed my scrappy ornaments for the first time. I’d been storing them at my parents’ house. We’d collected several others by that time at Target or little boutiques & we liked to find vintage ones, too. His dad & grandma had gifted him beautiful ceramic ornaments from the German Christmas market. I felt like my old ornaments would clutter the tree, that they looked kind of juvenile, tacky, or cheap. But before I knew it, Matt was hanging my bottle cap ornaments on the tree, then the dollar store plastic houses & icicles & rubies, with as much care as those made of glass. This kind of acceptance & lack of judgment he brings to the world is one of the ways his love has healed me.
Now, some of the ornaments I’ve made have started to fall apart a bit & have been retired of my own accord. But our tree has become this old-timey, maximalist vision, dripping with layers of ornaments that catch the lights. The tree my mom got for us has the option of warm white or multi-colored lights with settings to make them blink. One setting cycles from white to a transitional fuzzy yellow, orange, & lavender, then to multi-colored. It’s so pretty & soothing to watch.
Sure, we would have loved to not have to suddenly replace two tires this week & it would be so helpful if I were able to sustain gainful employment & we won the lottery. But this beautiful tree is such a perfect symbol of our present moment. Rich in history & the ability to catch & spin light. We are making do with what we have & letting the abundance of what we have be enough. There’s a chubby little black cat pawing at a ruby on a low-hanging branch. I’m sure some of the sweetest Christmases didn’t depend on expensive presents. In fact, I’m thinking of a little baby born in a stable, who had no fortune to his name. Still, he was the light of the world.
Until next week,
Annie
Soundtrack:
“Look At What The Light Did Now” by Little Wings & Feist
“Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio
“What I Got” by Sublime (couldn’t find an uncensored version, but your imagination can surely fill in the bleeps)
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