(Host)
We all have our favorite traditions at holiday time. For poet and
commentator Anne Averyt’s mother, nothing made the season more special
than the holiday tree.
(Averyt) My mother wasn’t German but her
signature Christmas carol could have been O Tannenbaum. Decorating the
Christmas tree was one of the holiday traditions she most enjoyed. Two
weeks before Christmas, with a troupe of us kids in tow, my mother would
walk the three blocks to our local elementary school tree lot where she
would barter for the ideal tree – in her mind that could only be a
perfectly conical Scotch pine. Then, with my sister hoisting the front
end and me dragging the trunk, we kids would carry the tree home in an
evergreen Christmas parade.
Once we had it in the living room,
the challenge of stabilizing the tree in its stand was a feat of civil
engineering, while stringing the lights was a test of patience and wits.
Half a century ago, the fat multi-colored light bulbs could be
unscrewed and rearranged – which my mother did obsessively, making sure
no two identically colored bulbs ever nestled too closely together. The
desired effect was a perfectly random look that was anything but random.
Next came the hanging of the ornaments. The assorted ornament
collection was a timeline of kids and school projects – the kindergarten
popsicle sleds, the second grade baked dough candy canes, the pipe
cleaner stars and third grade intricately painted stained glass angels.
We kids finally had our turn hanging the Christmas balls, but my mother
was right behind us to rearrange any clashing color schemes.
Those
trees of childhood still live in my mind’s eye, monuments to my larger
than life memory of Christmases past. Somehow it just doesn’t seem like
Christmas without a tree. Yet, here I am in mid-December, fir-less,
pine-less, tree-less.
I now celebrate Christmas day in a distant
city with my children and a grandchild, so having a real tree doesn’t
seem to make much sense. I light up the house in December with candles
and decorate with vintage holiday ornaments, but I miss the center of
attention – the tree. Life of course is simpler without a Christmas tree
– nothing demanding to be watered, no cascading needles to be swept up
or brittle branches to drag curbside in early January.
I know
not having a Christmas tree is most sensible – but sensible really isn’t
what Christmas is about. To me Christmas is about childhood magic – a
red-suited phantom, reindeer that fly and a live tree spreading its
branches in the middle of the house. So next year, even though I travel
afar, I think I’ll decorate a Christmas tree and let the sight and scent
rekindle the warm glow of memory. Like my mother, I’ll celebrate the
joy of the season in pine green and with the carolers recite the old
refrain, "O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, your branches green delight us."