Oh, Christmas Tree

I wish I had a picture of those trees: either the coathanger one or that scraggly juniper, but this was before cell phones, and camera film was too pricey for use on a tree, be it real or otherwise. So, my memory will have to suffice.

I was twelve, my brother ten, and there was no Christmas tree at my father’s house that year. We had a box of old ornaments, from who knows where, but nothing to decorate. Perhaps, like our coffee mugs, potholders, bedspreads, and wall art, the box was left behind by the previous owners and reused by my dad, who had not a single ounce of interior designer in his whole body.

What he had instead is a skill best described as “duct tape engineering.” Faced with our desire for a tree, he suggested we make one, from a wooden closet bar and wire coat hangers.

I twisted the tops of the hangers around the bar, staggering and bending the triangles to create a vaguely conical shape, swaddled it in plastic green garland, and hung ornaments from the metal branches. I was proud of that tree.

But my brother had never been more offended. The sight of that coathanger tree touched off something deep inside of him; he just couldn’t stand to celebrate Christmas under that thing. So, he went outside.

In the dunes beside our father’s house, he used a handsaw to cut a small wind-bent juniper, humped it inside, and adorned it with ornaments and a handmade star. He put his tree in the living room across from mine, each of us refusing to acknowledge the other’s.

Was Christmas ruined? Of course not.

A friend recently posted about the pressures this time of year – more expensive and numerous gifts, holiday decor, festive clothes, all the traditions you must pay to experience, in one form of currency or another. The list for a perfect Christmas grows longer, the bar ever higher.

But what will you or your children remember most, years from now?

We have a real tree, but half of it is missing. The entire back side looks like hungry deer feasted upon it, taking even the branches. That’s ok; it smushes into the corner and you can’t really see the missing chunks.

It’s also dry as a leftover sugar cookie, not drinking even a cup of water since we got it. I blame the hours it took to get it balanced in the stand – turns out, lopsided trees are highly unstable.

Yet the most important gifts will fit underneath just the same: our time, attention, smiles, and kind words. Those can come under an ugly tree, one made of coat hangers and plastic, a twisted beach cedar, a scrawny Charlie Brown tree, or under nothing at all.

My brother and his family are traveling to Nepal today, where they will spend the next few months working and living at a co-op farm. Will they miss Christmas? No – my brother knows how to find it, wherever it may hide.

– by Jessi Waugh