The Tree Community

by Lane Bushmeyer

I have come to learn that Christmas, like almost everything else, is a process of change rather than a constant.  Its meaning shifts focus as we grow up.  Over the years decorations break and lights burn out, and we replace them with new ones.  Schedules vary, so that no two Christmases are the same, as much as we might like to repeat a particularly memorable holiday season.  The gifts change as we mature.  Perhaps saddest of all, we lose the zeal and excitement of a child’s approach to Christmas, with its attendant sense of wonder.  But for me, one feature of Christmas at our house has stayed relatively fixed, and that is our Christmas tree, which is the subject of a tradition that has remained almost unchanged, and that seems to be ever more important as the years go by.

To begin with, I’ve always had the uneasy feeling that we’ve been committing the Cardinal Sin of Christmas Trees year after year, because our tree is artificial.  Now, I know that plenty of people have fake trees.  They’re on the shelves of Wal-Mart every year, which probably means they’re socially acceptable, but to me, lugging the tree down from the garage attic instead of venturing into the winter air to seek it out is a task that carries with it a faint sense of sacrilege.  Besides, I hate artificial plants.

So why do we have it?  When my brother and I were younger, we were allergic to quite a few things (and I still am), and bringing a needle-shedding conifer into the house made us flare up.  Although we’ve improved, we all fell into the fake tree habit.  Ironically, the notion of a real tree ousting our traditional pre-lit affair is one I would now approach reluctantly and with some distress.  As much as I dislike fake plants, I like change even less, and it brings out the obsessive in me.

The reason for my obsession in this case is our vast collection (I might venture to call it a community) of ornaments.  With a new tree coming in to host them every year, I would worry that they wouldn’t all fit, that the tree wasn’t tall enough, fat enough, full enough.  Because in our house, the ornaments aren’t decorations, they’re the main attraction.

At first glance our tree looks heavy, even overloaded.  If it was a work of art, it would be called garish, unbalanced, in very poor taste.  If it was a city or a town, it would be called “diverse.”  Aside from a few colored balls dimly reflecting the light, practically every object on the tree is an individual, distinct from all the others, with all the variation of an international airport.  There are, of course, snowmen, angels, and various renditions of Santa Claus.  But surrounding them is an unlikely multitude.  There is a delicate glass bird, a glittering nest complete with eggs, and a tiny wreath made of bells.  Pom-pom mice lie in walnut shell hammocks.  A tree frog and a salamander lurk among the branches.  There are Nativity scenes made of glass and of wood from the Holy Land.

Some of the ornaments are simple, like a handmade paper star with my name on it and a piece of twine to hang it with.  Then there are others like a little wooden Noah’s Ark, with a moveable elephant and giraffe and a whale suspended below.  The Batmobile hangs next to a golden T. rex skeleton and a grill.  The Star Wars logo looms heavily in the branches.  SpongeBob makes an appearance, as does Spider-Man, slinging a present from a rope of webbing.  Undersea life swims in midair—a humpback whale, a sailfish, and a jellyfish.  Other animals include a fox, a koala, elephants, and penguins.  Bigfoot peeks through the branches beside a large pendant ladybug.  There is our long-surviving pickle, which nearly shattered in a fall some years ago.  Among many others hang a piano, a guitar, and a knight with a feathery plume.

In my family there is a tradition in which my brother and I each receive new ornaments every year, and the community is often further diversified by additional ornament gifts in addition to these.  Fitting them all on the tree is an interesting challenge, and this year, for the first time in living memory, we’ve left some off.

It is the memories, I think, that make our tree community such a significant facet of Christmas, coupled with the novelty of discovering it anew each year.  I’m always amazed at what I’ve forgotten when we open the red and green plastic tubs.  But when all the ornaments come out, I can remember each one from previous years, as far back as I can remember Christmas.  Some are as old as I am, others even older.  As a child I would pretend they were alive.  I imagined them arguing over the best spots on the tree or hoping desperately to be placed beside their best friends.  They would assess any newcomers, sometimes with suspicion but more often with welcoming.  And in a way they were like friends, even though I only saw them for a few weeks each year.  Yet they’ve always been nearby, in the house or in the garage, and when I look at them they compel me to pause and remember previous years and, like a calendar with unfilled days, to look forward into the future.

I treasure the variety on our tree.  To me it serves as a reflection of the variety in the earth and in life and human beings.  I think this panoply of variation is one of the greatest blessings in this earthly life, and our tree and its ornaments remind me, every once in a while, to stop and wonder at it.