Last year, I did not get a tree. I got a live Christmas wreath instead and hung it on the front door. (I can still hear my sister's cackle when I told her about my wreath!) While it assuaged the dread of the tree and was nice in it's own right, something still felt unsettled.
Ever since my divorce, Christmas trees have been a kind of trigger for me. It painfully reminds me that the family that used to go to the local fire station to get a tree, then get hot cocoa and donuts and go home to decorate the tree was no more. I hated the idea that I "had" to get a tree because their dad was getting one. And nobody wanted to help me decorate the tree. So, while I was able to Marie Kondo the joyless tree last year, something was still amiss and I couldn't put my finger on it.
I grew up with a fake tree, so getting a real tree when I got married was a kind of novelty. We started getting a real tree when we had kids, because otherwise, we traveled back home for Christmas and there was no point in having a tree sitting in an empty house on Christmas Day. Once we split up, that tradition, like many other things, could not be easily split up into neat parcels.
The first year, I got a gorgeous artificial tall tree with all the trimmings from Freecycle. It seemed like a great provision. It was a generic tree with garlands, trimmings and ornaments in a color scheme and such. I used it for three years (and only had to put it up twice because one year I just left it up *all year*). Since it already had everything needed, I didn't open my family ornaments for three years. I just did not have the bandwidth to deal with those memories.
Year 4, I went through my treasure of ornaments, and threw out the stupid golf ball ornaments and all the other things I just never really liked. I was left with the cute school projects and sentimental ornaments that meant something. My generic tree now became more personalized, but I dreaded putting the darn thing away in the 8 boxes it came in. And again, because of its size, the tree was relegated to the back room, where it was forgotten again.
So, while remnants of the fake tree hang around in my basement, I made up my mind to not use it anymore. It was a reminder of things cast off, just like my marriage. So, I circled back to the idea of a real tree and the Charlie Brown trigger effect.
This year, I thought about getting a ceramic tree but that was just meh. I glumly decided that there would be no tree. My kids have outgrown Santa and it was a joyless experience dealing with a tree. The whole saga was renting too much space in my brain and ruining Christmas. I was really starting to get depressed about the holidays. That is, until a dear friend told me about her tabletop tree. Two to three feet max. Fake, lit, and done. On a table.
I kid you not, you literally get it out of the box, bend the branches downward, install the legs, plug it in and voila!
The tree was small enough that I decided to put it in the dining room, where we would see it and enjoy it every day. It's even near a window, so you can see the lights from outside. This was just the kick I needed to inspire the Christmas spirit. I put out a Christmas village that I keep for my Single Moms ministry (we use it once a year for a brunch and it otherwise stays in a bin all year long). And, drumroll please, I pulled out my Nativity set that I kept forgetting to put out each year!
This is the same Nativity Set that I kept in the kitchen in my herb window and resulted in a huge fight because my ex hated it there.
This little tree is like a balm to my soul. It fits. It resolves all those doubts and fears in my head about my inadequacy. It's MY tree. MY tradition. Something that I started for my intact family of four. It's particularly poignant that the tree was given to me. It wasn't a hand me down or an attempt to keep an old tarnished tradition. It was its own gift, with the lights that give me so much joy and time to reflect on the holiday itself. Christmas is not about pasting a smile on your face and pretending everything is just sparkly and great. Christmas is a light that shines in a bleak, hopeless and hurting world. My little tree is a gift that reminds me that Christmas itself is indeed a gift of unspeakable joy, mystery and profound hope in the dark.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - John 1:4-5
