We put up our christmas tree today. Whylime wrote a great post about walking the line of celebrating christmas as a non-christian, which is something that I struggle with, too.
In my family, christmas has never been about the baby jesus, but about celebrating with family and friends in the middle of winter, when it can get pretty bleak, otherwise. We always had a tree, and stockings, and Santa, and reindeer that preferred whiskey to carrots, because it ‘kept them warm on their long journey.’ Made sense to me. Celebrating christmas has always been one of the fondest memories of my childhood — the year we got sleds, and a note from Santa telling us to have fun and be careful, and the hours spent on them afterwards, a sawhorse at the bottom of the driveway warning cars off, and all the kids on the street taking advantage of our steep driveway with the big turn. Or, the christmas that I got the doll that peed and got a rash, and for the doll, I got a carriage and a highchair, and my little sister gave the doll a permanent rash with red marker, and Danny B sat in the carriage and broke it at brunch. I was so pissed. But I still remember that as a good time, too. Or the year my sister got a Rainbow Brite doll, and was so happy she cried. It’s one of the best pictures in our house, my sister, all of 6 or 7, on her knees, clutching Rainbow Brite to her chest, head thrown back, mouth open, about to burst into tears at the happiness of Santa getting her letter.
We only spent the holiday away from our home twice — once as very young children, I was maybe 6? And Kate 3? in Texas with my grandparents, and once in western New York, an unexpected trip that was made in the middle of the night on the 23rd, arriving on the 24th, just in time for my mom to be with her mother as she passed away on the 27th. We were there for almost 2 weeks, in the old farmhouse with no fireplace, and no christmas tree, our stockings hung on doorknobs and the ‘tree’ was a little 12inch white plastic with blue metallic balls centerpiece tree that sat on the coffee table. It was almost 2 weeks of lake effect snow, as well, my dad driving my mom and her sisters at 15mph from State Line to the hospital in Erie, and then preparing for Nana’s funeral the night before, my older cousins finding me a poem to read while I watched Miss Piggy and Kermit help host Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.
Other than that, it was always at the lake. And because we had no local family, my parents always hosted a big brunch on christmas morning, made up of our local ‘family,’ the people in our town who also had nowhere special to go. Only twice, until last year, had my parents not held a brunch on christmas morning. It had started in 1972, when they were first married, and lived in a cabin that was only accessible by snowmobile, and it moved and grew over time. Now that we’re in our own house, though, they have enjoyed the quieter holiday. The reason the brunch started in the first place is now the reason they’ve stopped — they have local family.
Today, when we picked out the tree, it took us 20 minutes, anyway. Half a dozen other families or couples* came and went while we tried to decide on a balsam fir or frasier fir, and we ended up with a nice, narrow, balsam. We moved the furniture and brought it in, adjusted it and strung the lights, and my parents called to take us to lunch. After lunch, they came back here, and my mom and I trimmed out the rest of the tree, and Dave tied on the star. Now, the house smells like balsam (YUM) and the tree is beautiful, and I love it. Through the whole process, all I could think was that, next year, there would be a baby here, who might be fascinated by the lights and ornaments and scents of the holidays. Or, you know, it might shriek in terror and the giant green monster that’s invaded the living room. Either way.
I imagine for us, we will do Santa and presents and stockings and such, and when the kid gets older and wonders why we don’t include church in any of it, we’ll explain, like my folks did with us. I don’t plan to be an all-out-overboard with gifts type of parent (corntastico has a great format, with getting things in specific categories, which I will probably totally steal when the time comes), but there will be gifts. And of course, Muppets.
I’ll post pics of the tree soon, it needs some shiny wrapped gifts underneath to make it look just right, and I haven’t gotten that far yet. Sure does smell delicious and look beautiful though, and yay! for sustainable forestry, local business/ag support, and the mulch it will be turned into by the city for the parks next spring. Just in case you wondered what my political leanings on real trees were. 🙂
*At the lot, we saw our old asshat neighbors — the ones that drove us insane with their fighting and drinking and smoking and loud music and OHMIGOD are we ever thankful this holiday season to be the hell out of that situation. We weren’t sure if it was them at first, and I suggested we ask her to shriek "OH GOD I FUCKIN’ HATE YOU" to check, but Dave thought that was a bad plan. What asshats. I can’t believe they’re still together, and neither of them is dead or in a body cast. SHUDDER.