Page One

The Christmas tree is aglow, even after four weeks. Its presence, soul, spirit fills the living room. It occupies a place of honor on the round maple table by the window. It is short, fat, bushy, full, generous for its two-and-a-half-foot height. 

Before it came into our living room this tree grew in some open space, thrived on air and water and soil, was cut down, hauled to a tree lot with hundreds of others. By some miracle, this tree was passed over by everyone until Tom found it four days before Christmas. 

With love and respect and abounding joy, we adorned the little tree with shiny red and gold and blue balls, silver garlands, twinkly lights, tiny wooden figures, Tom’s tin star, the free-form star Vicki Sue made on another Christmas. We basked in its radiance for many days and nights. 

This tree embodies all my Christmases past—all the family and friends, the season’s cheer, the tree-trimming merriment, the carol-singing, the excitement and suspense building to Christmas Eve, when we trimmed our tree, and (could we possibly live that long?) Christmas morning, when the family gathered to open the presents miraculously spawned by that year’s tree. 

The tree. It seems indecent, wrong, now, to undress this little tree, to see it shorn of its gay trappings, its pungent scent nearly gone, its color faded almost to brown. To carry it out to the curb to be carted away unceremoniously by the recycling crew. I am consoled that it will be recycled, not burned; its life-giving needles, branches and trunk will rejoin the earth and help give birth to another tree. 

So it goes—birth, life, death and rebirth. Back to Mother Earth from which we spring. Tree and human. The same. The sadness is embodied in the joy. All things must end—childhood, mother, father, life. Only the spirit remains—and the earth that gave us birth.