Tradition

From the tree trek in the woods to the hand-blown glass ornaments that Great Aunt Pauline handed down, Christmas is just as much about family traditions as it is about our shared religious beliefs. When we hike in hip deep snow in snow storms up and down the side of hills looking for that perfect tree, we remember doing this with our families or fathers when we were young. And we create new memories with our children. Sometimes those memories are of enormous Christmas trees that were too big for our living rooms. Somehow they always look smaller in the fields than they do when we get them home. Think Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation.  I think it was last year that we physically had to orbit our tree to get to the dining room.

One year I learned the hard way one should always decorate all the way around a tree even if it is against a wall. That was also the year I put up a (flimsy) artificial tree, the likes of which hubby would never have approved.  I’m sure every one of us has a memorable Christmas tree story. Mine is about the very first (and first real) Christmas tree I had when first married. That year we learned that one should NEVER hose down a tree (full of road salt, of course) in 20 degree weather.  It ended up defrosting all night in our kitchen – snap-crackle-pop!  Twenty-seven Christmas trees later, it is still a surprise what kind of tree hubby brings back and how I plan to decorate it – or attempt to cover it up! I think we’ve had two perfect trees in all these years. Last year I picked out the tree with one of my boys. When we got it back and in the house we discovered that from one side in particular – it looked pregnant.  That was the one we had to orbit. But those are memories I think of when I start to get all our Christmas stuff out of the attic.  I smile reliving all that.

Sometimes it’s about remembering all the different size trees we’ve had in the past years and how we handled those obstacles. Sometimes it’s about reliving our childhood and all the memories of Christmases past and turning off the television and turning on the Christmas music and the tree lights – all eleven strands of them! But it’s what we do together and how we create Christmas anew each year that binds us together as families.