Yes, that tree, the one that cost a small fortune at Lowes. It started off so well. I grabbed a pre-wrapped tree all ready to go with my youngest helping pick it out. A kind and generous stranger in Covid times offered to carry it to my car since I couldn’t lift it on my own. There was no line on black Friday, the new friend placed it in my van, I didn’t even have to tie it to the roof-it was such an easy transaction! But that is where the good feels ended.
In my excitement, I forgot to have them trim off the bottom so the tree could drink up water. I figured our new axe could take care of it and it did, sort of. It wasn’t super even-ok it looked like a small child did it and not the 2 adults who were actively troubleshooting this thing. We brought it in and it was too tall, we needed to cut 5 more inches off the base, so there it stayed wrapped up on the floor like a ten-foot-tall dead body. We had to borrow our neighbors saw the next day and we finally got it sorted.
This year, I bought a pre-lit garland and before I even plugged it in a cat ate through the wire. I had bought 2 sets of extra white lights while it was still hot outside just in case we needed them. So I put them on the garland and kept moving forward. I began putting lights on that tree after I had some space from it. Once they were all on, the middle 2 rows went out. I started troubleshooting the lights, changing fuses and actual bulbs-I felt like Clark Grizzwald: way too committed and still so far from the finish line. A couple of those lights that burnt out had come back on, teasing me to keep trying, but the rest wouldn’t budge.
The family decorating sesh ended with a stressed-out mom and little people fighting-Derek had to shut the whole thing down. I don’t think any happy Christmas memories were made that night, just some stories to tell a counselor when they are all grown up. The next day, I called Derek in time to run back into Lowes and get more lights after a firewood run. The tide was turning, I was so happy that I didn’t have to go there again! I put them on in a flash- 3 boxes only to discover at that moment they were LED cool white and no there was no way I could make it look right. At which point Fisher said it doesn’t have to be perfect Mom-and I was thinking- not perfect honey, I just don’t want to get a headache looking at it. I carefully took them all off and stole a random strand from a little tree in the other room- a strand I bought before the EPA got involved and made other shades of white. I didn’t have the heart to take them off the Garland because it was the only decoration actually behaving itself. I finished decorating the tree and Derek was putting the kids to bed. I could tell the base needed secured but I couldn’t yell for Derek and risk waking up the almost asleep kids-so I ran to get Derek to help me secure it and then it all fell down. All ten feet of it. That’s right, the night before my hot chocolate advent party, that ten-foot dead tree body was back on the floor, this time covered with bling.
Thankfully, I only lost a few ornaments and Derek expertly helped put it back in its stand. Hours later it was all sorted but after that the damage was done, this tree was no friend of mine. Whatever notions I had about letting it into my Christmas heart were gone-we were acquaintances, nothing more. It loomed over me crooked with a silly little wire trying to hold it in place. It was like a Christmas version of Weekend at Bernies-all it needed was some sunglasses to make it look alive.
At some point in the middle of the tree wrestling, light checking, fuse changing tasks I wondered what this was all about. My Dad would have quoted something about Murphy’s law. That tree process felt like a microcosm of this entire year. The excitement when it started off with hope and promise and then the unexpected twists. What do you mean they closed the schools? The pivoting, the reassessing, the four decisions needed for every one action. The word unprecedented thrown around like confetti. As it turns out I don’t really like unprecedented things- at least not any of these.
I’m so tired from trying to make beauty out of something that is broken, something that won’t stand up on its own.
We all feel the strain of engaging in a fallen world, maybe never so much as this year. I start thinking-why do we even have Christmas trees and then I’m struck by the word tree, how so much comes back to that word. That the very one born to carry the sin of the world would let himself be nailed to one. How I serve a God that never ceases to make beauty out of broken things. He willingly offered up himself as a remedy for all that is wrong in the world. We are told that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength-our waiting and pressing into the situations we have been called to are not in vain. That’s the hope of Christmas.
SoI let that tree be. I left it alone and tried to shake off the guilt I feel when it gets crispy because I never water it enough. I let it’s half decorated backside stay that way and tried to ignore the fact that it was too far from the wall.
Ten feet of toil whose beauty did not match the effort put into it. Much like this year.
As of today, the tree has been stripped of its finery and its tour of duty complete. Tomorrow, I’ll usher it out to the trash and begin again-setting my hands to the things before me and wait to be renewed. SM