O Christmas Tree

A friend with two daughters in their early twenties came to visit at Christmas. “Oh,” she said. “You have a tree!” She touched it. “And it’s real!”
I smiled and cheerfully answered “Yes. Always.” and we spoke of other things. But this is what I really wanted to say.
Of course I have a tree. If I didn’t, how could I hang up my first Christmas stocking and my first Christmas card? What would I do with the little angel I made out of pipe cleaners and kleenex when I was 8 and other family "heirlooms" that have been on Canadian, Jamaican and American Christmas trees over the years? What would be the point of the ornaments I bought in South Africa and Holland when I visited those countries? How useless would be those given to me by friends for the last 22 years!
And, of course my tree is real. That’s what it’s about. Bringing a real tree into your home. Did the Egyptians bring an artificial date palm into their houses during the winter solstice to symbolize life’s triumph over death? Did the Romans decorate their homes with synthetic trees at Saturnalia? Would the Druids have been able to keep evil spirits from their dwellings with “a discount ticonderoga pencil tree with convenient hinged branches that comes with a one year warranty”? Would little German children have been as impressed by a candlelit fake fir?
Of course, a non-driving person couldn’t do this alone. Over the years different friends have helped me get my tree home and obliging tenants have helped me set it up.
For the last several years, I’ve been helping a friend keep her own Christmas tradition alive as she helps me bring home my very own Christmas tree. Sallie and Jay used to take their three sons out to Nelson County, a largely rural area south west of Charlottesville, to get their tree from Mr Napier, a friendly Virginia gentleman with a small tree farm. Now those sons have moved away and had children of their own and Sallie and Jay go to far away to visit them for Christmas. So, Sallie takes me to Mr Napier instead.
He cuts my tree.

He measures it to make sure it’s the right size.

He ties it on Sallie’s car for us.

Then, I take her out to lunch at a nearby restaurant to say Thank you and we go back to Charlottesville.
I always imagine I’m going to put Christmas music on, make myself a cup of tea or hot chocolate and leisurely and calmly decorate my splendid tree, humming along to my CD. The reality is I work to deadline during the commercial breaks of a Hallmark Channel Christmas-themed movie a day or two before my first guests arrive.
But doesn’t it look splendid?

Merry, Happy and Busy

All twelve days of Christmas are over. I’ve been back in Paris for nearly a week. And only today have I found time to tell you about my Christmas holiday -– a clue as to how busy I've been, as always during this season.
French friends who ask “What do you do in Charlottesville in November and December?” are puzzled when I answer “Christmas”. "What is there to do," they wonder, "besides getting a few gifts -- which the stores gift-wrap -- for members of your immediate family, especially the children, planning an excellent and sophisticated family dinner for December 24th and getting a small tree up and decorated by Christmas Eve? How can that take an entire month for a person without husband, children, parents, siblings or in-laws?"
My North American friends understand better, but wonder how someone who doesn’t work, doesn’t have to bake cookies for the office Christmas party and doesn’t have to juggle visits with family in far away places or share married children with their in-laws, needs the entire month of December to prepare for the holidays.
Neither group understands that, for me, the preparation is the holiday. Over the years, I’ve developed my own form of celebration allowing me to blend past and present and bring together all portions of my double life.
Right after Thanksgiving, my den becomes a workshop.


Christmas shopping is finished early in December – not because I’m so organized, but because everything has to be wrapped and sent -- to France, Italy and Canada as well as various places in the United States. “Why don’t you order off the internet and have things shipped?” asked one friend recently? “I like to wrap”, I answered. But that isn’t the whole answer. While I wrap, I listen to Christmas music, think of the people the gifts are for and remember past Christmases or other times when we were together. Clicking “gift-wrap” on an internet site wouldn’t provide me with nearly as much pleasure.
Christmas cards take up the rest of the month.

Scene of many happy hours writing my cards.

I send cards to the normal range of friends and family members I’m in touch with throughout the year. But Christmas is a time to remember. So I remember some of my friends from elementary school in Canada and one of my father’s former secretaries. I remember friends from high school in Jamaica, my Latin teacher, the widow of one of the salesmen who worked for Daddy as well as our next door neighbors and the wife of the son of one of Daddy’s business associates -- now living in Canada. I remember friends from college, a couple of professors and a 90 year old lady from Texas my mother once met on a riverboat trip. I’ve never met Geneva Thell but we’ve carried on a great correspondence for over twenty years and I spent a delightful evening at the Moulin Rouge with one of her daughters and sons-in-law a few years ago when they came to Paris. All these people have touched and enriched my life and continue to do so – if only at Christmas. And no hard-nosed and practical organization specialist will ever make me drop them from my Christmas card list.
“Is that all you do at Christmas? I hear you asking. Of course not. But this is a start -- to let you know that I haven’t forgotten you. Look for more in the days to come.