I love Christmas trees! I love trees and all things alive (almost) and plants, but especially trees. They are my favorite animal. So I just love having a real tree in the house at Christmas time. I always felt bad that the tree gave up its life like a picked flower staying alive only from the water in the vase for a few days, in order to have this connection, in order to connect with and love us.When I was small, I used to dream of building a house with a porch around a Christmas tree, and then we would enclose the porch for Christmas morning, so we could have a truly live tree. I wanted a real, live not dying, Christmas tree SO bad, but I was told that that couldn't work - so I was happy to at least get dead flower Christmas trees. I never gave up on my dream, though.
Then, when I met my husband from "save the earth"-ville, he said what he always says, the perfect thing. His whole life growing up they had live, truly live, Christmas trees, that instead of chopping down a tree for Christmas, they planted one. Everything I find out about him, and I still am getting to know him better and better constantly. Everything I find out about him is always better than my wildest dreams. (but that's not why I love him - it just makes it easier to think of something nice to say to him to cheer him up.)
So it has always been especially special for us to get a potted tree each year at Christmas. I cannot say that this is infinitely better than chopping one down. I'm sure thousands of trees are planted each year because of the money people are able to make from cut Christmas trees. Tree farms must be wonderful places, and the whole life of the tree, until it gets to be the tallest most beautiful perfect tree that can only fit in the tallest part of the fanciest house, the whole life of the tree is spent making the world a better place and the air more beautiful, and I'm sure making the lives of those who work on tree farms infinitely better than they would be if they were otherwise stuck in an office or a plastic factory. Though I'm not against plastic trees, as they prevent trees from being cut down each year. I guess I'm only against disposable plastic trees, if there is such a horrible thing.
And not all of our trees have lived. We have never owned our own land, so we give them away, or go plant them on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere near other trees like them, so they will be happy and have a chance to live. We are saddened each time one dies. One time we had no money for rent, and had to move, so we just left our tree in the parking lot of the church with a sign on it for someone to please take it home and love it. But some we have gone back to find and to visit, and they are still alive! I just have to remember, it is not bad to die, it is just bad to kill.
And it is the idea. To me the tree is a living thing. Not just a living thing, but I connect more to it than I do to a person. I love trees! So whatever the best thing to do at Christmas for the greater good of the environment and the world as a whole is, I don't know. But for the individual tree that we get and love, to be loved and to at least have someone want you to live and go out of their way to have you live and to love you, being a potted tree is the best thing.
One year we were really tight on money, but it has been a tradition to get a live tree and it is my favorite part of Christmas. So the night before Christmas we went to the store, and they had a little tiny one in a pot the size of a cup, and it was on "we need to get rid of it before Christmas" sale, so we could afford it! (I think it was less than $1. That is when we can afford to go Christmas shopping! It is so fun!) We put it on top of our windowsill and piled the presents around, and that was the best Christmas!
So yesterday we drove to a little old lady's house way out in the country. The only place in town where you can get a living Christmas tree that will withstand the winter. My sister from out of town was like, "Where we live everybody gets a Christmas tree, so you can just get one in any old parking lot. It's weird so few people here get Christmas trees that you have to drive clear out here." Then she saw the trees and she was like "Oh! You mean a LIVE, live Christmas tree! That is so COOL!" :)
It was dark, and nobody was there, but we piled out anyway and tried to look at some trees by the light of my sisters phone, lol. I tied one baby on to me and had another on my hip, and then they saw the cat, and so they were happy. I love Christmas trees. I didn't want to become too attached to any one, because I knew we were only taking one home. But I stuck out my hand and let the pine needles brush me and could feel the tree. I used to climb trees all the time, and come home with my arms scraped and bleeding. I called them tree kisses.
So we listened to which tree was ours, counted our cash and thought of just taking the tree and leaving the money, but the lady showed up. (We hadn't known it was 10% off, so it was nice she came.) Then we brought our tree home. It was kind of like adopting a cat. Now it feels like Christmas! All the stress of the last year just disappeared and it was like we were celebrating the bringing in of the tree into our home. Celebrating the start of a living thing with us, like the start of the Saviors life. Whether we have presents or decorations doesn't matter anymore. They are still fun to do, but only for the fun of it. The real joy of Christmas is already within our home, and we don't have to do anything else to try to get it to come. We are having a Christmas, and those are just accessories, ones I really love and are my favorite things in the whole world, but not ones Christmas depends upon. I love a tree in the house. There is a certain feeling that comes into our home with it, like there is a certain feeling in a home when a baby is born. The kids played on it all day, having their fingers climb up it like little people climbing a giant redwood.
Then we sang Christmas carols to it all together as a whole big family, and there wasn't anything better in the world.
" In all our trials born to be our friend" - Oh Holy Night!
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