Merry Christmas

This is a picture of our Christmas tree. I have mini-lights on the tree and I also have real tree candles I bought in Germany. Here, in North America, we have become somewhat overly obsessed with eternal life - not in the religious sense but in the sense of thinking that if we just eat the right things, soak our kids' clothes with fire retardant chemicals and take the right vitamins, and never have real candles on a real Christmas tree, that somehow we will escape the Angel of Death.

Now personally, I don't see what the point is in living without risk. I've never sky-dived or climbed Everest but I get it. I do keep an eye on the tree when I have the tree candles burning and the mini-lights are for the times when the candles are not burning. There's nothing like a real tree with real candles and a real popcorn chain and a real cranberry chain with real gingerbread men. I didn't take the time to make the popcorn chain or the cranberry chain this year and the gingerbread men disappeared from the decorating plans a couple of years ago, when the dogs decided they would make a great late night lunch. That was a happy dog Christmas, let me tell you. All the shattered glass ornaments that filled the spaces between the gingerbread men notwithstanding, I didn't begrudge them their celebration overly much.

Over the years I have collected a lot of bird tree decorations - mostly white birds, like doves, although I have all kinds of birds hanging from the tree. Even so it is not a theme tree, in the sense that theme tree decorators would understand it. But in the last few years, it has been more and more my desire to put things on the tree that are meaningful to me in a spiritual way. The dove of course is associated with the Holy Ghost. In addition to that, given that birds occupy a space between the heavens and the earth, in many cultures they are given a spiritual significance as messengers between heaven and earth. So that's how I got into birds.

I got into roses this year. In Protestant theology Mary, the Mother of Jesus does not hold the place that Catholics assign to her, however, roses and the scent of roses are associated with her presence. So that's how I got into roses (and other flowers).

Some ornaments I collected from Germany, from the time when I lived there. Germans go a fantastic job with Christmas and their Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market). I don't think you have seen elaborate gingerbread until you have been to one of those markets. They define elaborate and Germans, having invented the Christmas tree via Martin Luther, have many well-known makers of fine Christmas decorations. For example, hand carved wooden figures - I have a small pipe-smoking Santa, the pipe-smoking emanating from a cone of incense at the base.

I also have a pyramid thingie made in Germany - three separate tiers - the first of which consists of black-robed carollers, the second of which contain the shepherds and their sheep, and the third which consists of Joseph and Mary and the Wise Men. Candles are lit at the base and the heat makes them all twirl around until they look dizzy enough to puke.

And then I have all kinds of ornaments, whatever I've picked up here and there over the years, things that caught my eye. The top of the tree is of course, a majestic looking angel. Not one of those twinkly ones that you plug into the main lights. Lights doing a version of Jingle Bell Rock and cavorting around and winking on and off make me crazy. I like lights that just are lights. If I disco, I'll look in some retro type store and put on the Bee Gees.

Now I don't know if some Christians have a problem with the Christmas tree or if they see it as secular or pagan in nature. To me it means much as it did to Martin Luther, who did take a pagan custom but saw it in a new light - the light of Christ's love. Particularly for those of us who see little light now in the darkest days of the year, who look outside the window and see nothing alive or green - the evergreen becomes a wonder - a reminder that dark nights of the soul pass, that the dead-looking trees outside are only sleeping. That leaves will burst forth again, and grass spring up, and the birds come back to cheer us with their praises to the Creator. That the dog days of summer will come again, that branches will hang heavy with fruit.

The Christmas tree is a parable to me, of Christ's eternalness, and of the promise that the night will pass, the summer will come, we will yet have life again.

Matthew 4:16: The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

Layla