O Tannenbaum

On this past Sunday, I helped my family choose and retrieve a Christmas Tree. For as long as I can remember, we have selected red firs, otherwise known as silvertips, for our holiday trees, as their spaciously separated branches lend themselves easily to the hanging of massive quantities of homemade, antique, and otherwise sentimental ornaments. Usually we use both colored and white lights (because we can never quite decide on one over the other, or because we don't have enough of one kind to sufficiently cover the tree), which only adds to the chaotic decorative scheme of the tree as a whole. This year, however, my family broke from our usual mold. Not the mold of chaos in terms of adornment, but the kind of tree itself. Per my suggestion, we selected a cedar, my very favourite evergreen. We also trucked it back to our house in an unusual way:
That's me in the foreground of the bed of the 1927 Model T truck (which my dad rebuilt this summer), equipped with chains, tree hanging out the back. My sister Emily was the photographer, her fiance Gabe looking like a member of Al-Qaeda and giving a thumbs-up, and my dad, donned in his cowboy hat (i.e. not-so-gay apparel (à la"falalala")), in the cab. It was a good time, although it got rather cold riding in the back.

Taking the life of any living thing is a spiritual experience. I wish that we could have inflicted less damage on the tree which is now doomed in our living room, covered in bells and whistles (now sheltering a pile of gifts, the overwhelming minority of which are designated "from" my dad, my mom, and myself). Nonetheless, the rest of the beautiful cedar whose top we claimed from the forest will live on, though severely stunted: we left a good four feet of growth, branches and all.

I will truly miss my proximity to such natural beauty. All stages of life are seen in just a few minutes spent walking through a forest; the correlation to human life is unmistakable. From shoots to snags, the beings of the forest fight gravity as we, cradle to grave, fight time. These noblest of souls breathe in what we breathe out, and conversely.

Do forgive my tangents. It is Christmas time. And while I may rarely see the benefit of the Christianization of the West (nor, for that matter, evangelism or intent-to-convert of any kind religious or political), Christmas has always been a positive time for my family, and the appreciation of simple things like warm beverages, the crackling of firewood, dressing warmly, and hearing the crunch snow underfoot. May you all appreciate these things, and may you all have a happy holiday.