Half Cent Christmas Tree

We never got our Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. Our windows were decorated with those plastic sticker scenes, our bedroom doors with cardboard cutout shapes of Christmas things like trees and reindeer and snowmen, our outside lights put up. But no tree. That always arrived late on an evening filled with all kinds of exciting events.

Dinner was light and gotten out of the way quickly because of the Christmas Eve service at church. We had to dress up special and trek to the church early so Dad could get everything ready, make sure the bulletin was printed out and the heat on and the fellowship hall set up. The Church sanctuary always had a small tree with very limited and elegant decorations. And there was a huge twenty foot wreath suspended in the arch of the platform where the choir sat.

In the fellowship hall the tree was larger and heavily decorated with tons of ornaments and drenched in silver tinsel. The women of the church were busy with refreshments for after the Christmas Eve service. We kids would run around all excited, poking our noses into everything and making a nuisance of ourselves. Finally, it was time for the service to begin.

We were so impatient to get it over with and get to the party afterwards. Santa (believe it or not) always made a appearance and handed out presents to all the younger kids. We sang carol after carol and read Scripture verse after Scripture verse while I fidgeted and got pinched by Mom for making too much noise and tried to stifle a fit of laughter and swung my feet and got down on the floor then back up on the pew and wished and wished and wished for the service to end.

Finally we were lighting the candles and singing Silent Night. Each little candle had a paper skirt that was supposed to keep the wax from dripping and making a mess. We stood in our pews by the light of the candles, and it was the only time I was quiet and paying attention. There was something magical about the end of the service that even the babies recognized. After the singing of the carol, my Dad closed in prayer and we kids made a beeline for the fellowship hall as soon as the n of the Amen sounded.

We waited impatiently while the adults had their coffee and cake, nibbling excitedly at the buffet table feast. Then we gathered in chairs facing the tree and Dad, dressed as Santa, would come out lugging a big red bag of presents. He called each child's name and handed them a wrapped present. Some kids got dolls and trucks and books. I remember jumping up and down excitedly, waiting and hoping that my name would be called next. The wait was more memorable than the present!

Afterwards everyone was given a box the size of a box of animal crackers filled with hard candy of all shapes, colors and flavors. I sat on the floor with the other kids and sucked a piece of candy and played with my toy while the adults cleaned up. After everyone else left, our family packed up and headed home. Often there would be a gentle snow falling as we covered the few blocks to our house.

Mom would swish us into pajamas and hustle us up to bed. Dad stopped on his way home at the Christmas tree lot to purchase a marked down tree. At 9pm on Christmas Eve, it was a wonder the tree sales person was still there. Dad would gloat over how he only paid a dollar or fifty cents. Some years he got it for free! They were always scraggly bent and misshapen, but Dad knew just how to saw off lopsided and awkward branches to make our tree seem perfect. He always set it up in the formal parlor, far from the bustle of a household overflowing with active children.

We usually got to see it in the holder before we were ordered to our rooms, but there were never lights or ornaments on it because the branches needed time to come down after being cramped together in the cold. Mom and Dad would busy themselves wrapping last minute gifts and putting together anything that required assembling and running upstairs a dozen times to make excited kids get back in bed.

After we settled down and the tree had time to breathe, Dad would unknot and string the lights and Mom would hang the ornaments. There were always strings of popcorn and cranberries and tons of carefully cut and glued construction paper chains to add to the unusual collection of bubble lights and bird ornaments and blown glass bulbs.

In the morning, we would tiptoe down the stairs into the cold front hallway and open the parlor doors, a set of French glass doors with gauzy white curtains obscuring the interior from view. There, shimmering and larger than life stood the fully decorated tree surrounded by a mountain of wrapped presents. The lights shone and the tinsel glittered and the ornaments glistened. It was awesome. To a young girl it seemed like heaven on earth. I hardly dared breath for fear it would disappear.

Dad never got up before 10:00 am, and then insisted on eating a full breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and grapefruit before he would let us gather in the parlor to unwrap gifts. I am sure he took a small delight in watching us agonize about having to wait.

As much as I thought the fun of the Christmas tree was about the presents beneath, I came to understand over time that the glow of the tree that really drew us was the excitement that built up as we looked forward to being blessed by people who loved and knew us, who took the time to make the day special, who understood what would make our little hearts flutter and our day be joyous.

It was, in fact, the fun of rejoicing with my sister when she unwrapped the huge stuffed animal and being gleeful with my brother when he discovered an erector set and the happiness of helping the baby unwrap a rattle. Without the spectators, the gift getting would have fallen flat. A present is just another possession. But a shared discovery is a memory to be cherished.

It is not the beauty of the decorations or the cost of the string of lights or the perfection of the tree that is significant. It isn't even the expense or the number of gifts. It is the love and community partaken beneath the boughs that puts a smile on the faces of people who encounter a Christmas tree. Whether the tree goes up a month before Christmas or an hour beforehand, it is the wait and the agony of anticipation makes the love all the more precious.

And after all, that is what Christmas is really all about. Love.