Listen to the Evergreen Trees. They've a Story to Tell

“Nature has many scenes to exhibit….She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment….Some green she thinks so good for our eyes that, like blue, she never banishes it entirely from our eyes, but has created evergreens.”

--Henry David Thoreau

This is a tale of trees. December trees.

Not until the night of December 24^th—that’s when my family finally decorated the evergreen Christmas tree my Dad had purchased at a local farm stand and then dragged into the house, a river of needles marking that pathway. Then he stood it up in our rickety old stand with help from us kids, all of us barking out conflicting commands to place it just so. “Right! No left! It’s crooked! Okay…a little more…perfect!” And then that green symbol of life, of life that does not end, even when the cold comes and the snow falls and the rest of nature sleeps; the tree stayed up right through a new year’s evening. 

That’s the story of the tree in my childhood home. What’s your tree’s story, your tree traditions, your winter greenery rituals?

Is your tree a “real tree”, green, growing, alive? Then you are with the 30 million other Americans who last month and this month will purchase an evergreen that is truly “ever green”, at least until it is discarded post holidays and holy days. If your tree tastes run more to the faux and artificial, then you stand with about 25 million other folks who, because of convenience or tradition or economics, display a tree, that while not a real tree, still stands tall and green and with a bonus. No watering. No fire hazards. No throwing it out. Just pack it up until next year.

Though we might assume the yuletide ritual of putting a living tree inside the house began in Christian circles, the answer is quite older and ancient. Humans, beginning with folks like the Vikings who practiced earth based religions, began bringing greens and greenery into the home thousands of years ago.  When winter was so long, the greens reminded them that spring would come back again. Then the Romans displayed greens in their domiciles to mark the festival of Saturnalia, a holiday celebrating the god Saturn, that ran from December 17^th to the 23^rd.

The modern evergreen tree movement began either in Latvia or Germany (both claim that first)  beginning in the 1500’s and immigrants from those countries brought their traditions with them here to the United States. But if you tried to put up a tree or sing carols or take work off on the 25^th in Puritan Massachusetts you were out of luck.  The Massachusetts Bay Colony actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas for a time in the 1600’s.

Ho, ho, ho? No, no, no.

Which reminds us that for all the assumption we might make about the holidays and holy days we celebrate this month—like that there is one “right” way to mark the season, limited to one religion or one inviolable tradition or one type of tree--that’s not really true. That’s a good thing.

There is a wild and wonderful democracy to this holiday, thank God.

We are free to put up a fresh green tree or a silver aluminum tree or place a twenty foot blow up Santa on the front lawn or light candles on the menorah or play elf on the shelf or go for out for Chinese food on the 25^th or maybe even work, like millions of police officers and firefighters and nurses and cab drivers and clerks and soldiers and clergy who will be on duty at month’s end, so we can have a day off.

My hope and prayer for all of us this month is simple. That as the big day approaches, each in our own ways: we might return to the rituals—like that tree—which make this time of year special, even magical, even holy, for us . That we each might give more to charity and show more compassion to those in need and slow down more and rest in the deep of winter and love more, our family and friends and neighbors and this beautiful and broken world. 

Maybe that’s what we can think of, pray for, ponder, when we see a snow covered evergreen holding vigil in the cold, or a lit up tree twinkling in the window.

That’s my tale of the trees and this special month. What’s yours’?