O Christmas Tree

“O Christmas Tree - your beauty green will teach me”

I am filled with such melancholy this Christmas season, and I know a tree will be just the remedy. There’s something about an evergreen standing inside my house that brings a combination of hope and tenderness. A triangular conifer that relentlessly points upward. Its branches reach out to me as if to say “peace on earth” and “joy to the world.” These benedictions, weirdly both hallowed and hackneyed, have echoed in my bones since childhood. I still want to believe.

It must be a real tree. For me, no artificial one will do. I love the asymmetry of it all. Its perfect imperfections. How each one is unique and worthy, from Rockefeller Center perfection to Charlie Brown trees that somehow still manage to purport themselves with dignity and significance.  

Getting the tree itself is a ritual. Selecting the one you’ll make your own, and later pronounce as your favorite, brings to mind the poignancy of adopting a dog. You promise to take care of them and love them even though you know it’s not forever. Perhaps it’s this exact consciousness that makes us love and appreciate more. Whether it’s the Christmas tree or our loved ones, everything is finite. Sometimes I can forget that. The tree reminds me.

The tree brings life to these short days of December. And when adorned, it illuminates the night with a shimmer giving light to the darkness. And it’s a beautiful light, almost twinkling with assurance.

Throughout the holiday, I’m known to stand in front of my tree, face to branch to pluck a dark green needle from the bough. I bend it in half so as to inhale the forest balsam. That woodsy, crisp, almost spicy aroma calms me, transporting me from far-afield worries to the present moment of evergreen. I am grateful for the reminder that being present is the present. I am grateful to the tree.

Part of its offerings are the baubles that hang from each of its limbs. They are the same ones I’ve pulled out of storage year after year, decade after decade. Accumulated and curated ornaments that tell a story of my life. The tiny wooden letter “P” I painted the year of my daughter’s birth. It hangs on a red ribbon and when I hold it close I feel that big, messy love I have for this baby who is now a woman. A delicate ceramic camel my husband gave to me when we first dated. It’s so fragile; every year I’m surprised it has survived. But, so it has - and us too. A colorful hummingbird my sister gave to me years ago when my large family of origin finally gave up buying for the multitudes and instead gifted ornaments. Tokens of love that dangle from string. It speaks to the often precarious belonging of family.

I’m happy to report that the tree in my house is no longer surrounded by layers of presents upon presents. It took some doing to curtail my learned instinct to shop ’til I drop for Christmas. As if the letter “C” in this holiday stood for consumerism. Now, our family focuses on time together. Cooking, eating, singing, dancing, and laughing. Mostly mining the joy of the moment. Truth be told, this particular holiday season won’t come again. Let us share it in fellowship. I’d surmise it’s what we all really need, much more than another sweater, candle, or calendar. 

When the time comes for the tree to leave the house, it continues to give. And not just the job of picking up evergreen needles, a task that mysteriously can last throughout the year. The parting gift of the tree, if you’re like me, is that when it leaves, all of a sudden my space feels larger. As if there’s more room in my life. I’m curious how I’ll fill this newfound space. It’s a great sentiment to contemplate as I head into the upcoming new year. 

IN MUSING by Carole Vasta Folley
has won awards from
The Vermont Press Association,
The New England Newspaper & Press Association,
and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.