O Xmas Tree

I have been lying awake listening to my parents make their numerous trips up and down the stairs from their bedroom to the Christmas tree presumably with gifts they’ve been hiding in the closet. I eventually drift off, but, at 3am on Christmas morning, I’m awake. In a half sleep, I sneak out to the living room to see what kind of load Santa has dropped off on his annual rounds. The room smells of sweet pine and is pitch black until I tip toe over and flip the switch to light the tree. A soft glow illuminates the room and I stand alone in the quiet in my cozy flannel pj’s and look up all the way to the top. To the angel that sits above it all, shiny and sparkling. I reach out and lightly pull a branch and feel the cool, prickly needles against my hand and I see myself red, reflected in an ornament. I hear creaking upstairs and realize my mother knows I’m up. She comes down to find me hiding under the dining room table and shoos me back to bed.

It was generally my fathers job to hunt down the tree. As December began and Christmas day approached, I would check the garage anxiously and daily for it’s arrival. Dad was employed at Bonneville Dam up the Columbia River Gorge in daily operations. He rotated doing shift work: Graveyard, day, and swing. The gorge on the Oregon side of the river was all pine forest, so as the holidays approached, Dad would hike up to the power lines while on graveyard and cut one down. Since it was the middle of the night, I’m guessing all he had was a flash light to guide him and make his tree choice. The result was often wacky with multiple tops, large branches shooting way off to one side or just a big hole. I’m surprised there was never a family of squirrels ready to jump onto our faces as we strung the lights or an owl glowering down from where the angel should be.

The tree, traditionally parked in the front window, was decorated with a mishmash of ornaments. Reflective vintage types from the 40’s and 50’s with stripes and flocking, round or bell shaped. A set, beaded and satin, constructed by my grandfather that we always had to hang or else he’d get pissed. A handful of plaster figures hand painted by me and mom. A garland of shiny tinsel or popcorn and cranberries and sometimes the silvery icicles that we would find in the carpet year round. Finally, the lights. The multicolored large bulb kind that were hot to the touch that would give the room that rosy luminescence.

The custom of erecting a Christmas Tree can be historically traced to 15th century Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia) and 16th century Northern Germany. According to the first documented uses of a Christmas tree in Estonia, in 1441, 1442, and 1514, the Brotherhood of the Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their brotherhood house in Reval (now Tallinn). At the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square where the members of the brotherhood danced around it. In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square where the young men “went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame”. In that period, the guilds started erecting Christmas trees in front of their guildhalls: Ingeborg Weber-Kellermann (Marburg professor of European ethnology) found a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small tree was decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers" and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day. (Wikipedia...learn more)

In spite of its drawbacks—commercialization, stress, over spending, overeating, hangovers—there is much I like about Christmas. But my favorite ingredient of the season is the Christmas tree. In spite of their shape, size or ornamentation, there is something magical about o tannenbaum. The warmth of the lights, the smell of pine that fills the room, the pile of gifts underneath. And ultimately how it makes me feel the kid again. Whether Charlie Brown or decorated within an inch of life, I never feel there is such a thing as one too hideous. As I stroll the sidewalks of New York after Thanksgiving, I make a point of passing by every tree seller in the neighborhood just to catch a clean fresh whiff of forest and reach out for quick feel of soft green needles to remind myself that the world is not all concrete and brick.

I try to have a tree every year and have had all shapes and sizes. When I lived in an apartment with 15 foot ceilings I had 12 foot trees—even if I didn’t have the decorations to cover it. I once lived in a tiny studio apartment that was crammed full of stuff. So I had a tiny tree that perched at the end of a dresser. My friend Robert came by on Christmas day and we smoked a joint and stared at the tree, unmoving and mesmerized, for 3 hours. The lights were SO PRETTY. And just last year, my partner Chris had a tree delivered to me at mom’s house in Oregon which made me feel less lonely. This year, the tree is small and living so we can have it year round in the roof garden once the holiday is over and done. The small white lights twinkle within its branches and inexpensive small red balls dress it up. It’s a “bad economy” tree but beautiful all the same.

The prerequisite, if possible, is that the tree be taller than myself so that I will feel little and young. I still stand and stare at it in the dark (sans joint). I reach out and grab a branch to feel the cool prickly branches so that my hand will smell of pine. As beautiful as it is, I feel a bit sad. Believing in Santa gave way to jobs, relationships, grown up responsibilities and worldly worries. Life speeds by faster and faster, Christmases come and go. The next one sneaks up before you’re ready and is gone before you enjoy it. But there is a moment. A brief moment as I stand staring in the stillness and quiet. I forget the world but remember the sweet, earthy scent of pine, the soft glow of the lights, and the shiny, sparkling ornaments that I see while hiding under the dining room table in my cozy flannel pj’s before my mother sends me back to bed.