We walked into the forest on a December day without snow, two years ago now and found just what we wanted, only a few feet from each other; our perfect Christmas trees. Better even, for having been found in the woods on a cold winter's day. The trek back with those trees, having pushed farther up the mountain than planned, was not easy. Just as we reached the truck, tired and cold, the snow started to fall and we smiled in the delight of our day.
Back at home we put the tree in its stand and Tom carefully wrapped lights around and around. They were little white ones to which were added many red bows. Then the tree was finished with ornaments and placed in front of the window where it stood quite proudly. During the next days it drank and drank and I thought that was a sign, of a tree that would stay quite lovely. Family was coming for Christmas and I wanted everything to be just right. And it was, until the tree lost a needle and then more. I called my dad wondering what I should do and he shook his head (I didn't actually see it, but I knew) and said don't overreact that all trees lose needles. No, no I replied, this one is losing a lot. No sympathy there, so I told Tom and my mom and I think my sisters too and no help I found.
Then the day before Christmas Eve, I brushed against it perhaps, a little too hard and all of a sudden I heard quite a rustle and not one, not two, but all of the needles released from the tree. Only minutes later my parents arrived and saw a quite bare tree with a skirt of green needles below. Except for feeling quite vindicated about my lack of exaggeration, there was not much to do but laugh at the sight and shrug at the thought of starting over again.
My mom, knowing just what was needed, began to take off all the white lights wound so tightly around and then the bows and ornaments too. Meanwhile, my dad and I went into town, for we wanted a Christmas tree, but all that were left, were the saddest and woeful of all. Perseverance, however, is a trait of my dad and we trekked and we trudged through the streets (okay, we drove in his new shiny Subaru). Finally we found a tree that we agreed would not only do, but was just right. So home came tree number two. It was put in the stand, with lights wrapped around and bows and ornaments too. And it stood quite proudly, as the other one had.
All of that is to say that some of the joys of Christmas that year came not from my preconceived notions of how things should go, but embracing what is and through that finding laughter and cheer.
