It’s a bit washed out by the flash, but here is a full-length view of this year’s tree. There are still a few snowflakes left from back in 1986. I’ve given most of them away as gifts over the years.
Archive for the ‘Christmas memories’ Category
O Christmas Tree
Posted in Christmas memories on December 6, 2008| 1 Comment »
Christmas trees, part 1
Posted in Christmas memories, Memories on December 4, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Charlie Brown’s tree led me to thinking about my own trees, past and present. I didn’t even know anyone who had an artificial tree back when I first saw that Peanuts special. The different-colored aluminum ones seemed like a joke…who would ever buy one of those? (My mother-in-law, as it turns out…but we’ll let that pass.)
All the trees I remember until I was 9 years old were the fragrant, asymetrical kind that you can drape with icicles and egg-carton ornaments from school. We had glass balls–my favorites had silvery indented sections–and strings of big fat lights in blue and red and amber and green. I loved those trees. My mother grew to hate them. Both aesthetically and practically, they were painful. After our first Christmas in Fort Wayne, when she and Dad dragged the dead tree up from our lower-level family room, scattering needles everywhere, she announced that we would henceforth have an artificial tree.
At first I was horrified. No wonderful smell? No trips to pick out a tree? But Mom’s new tree was lovely and I enjoyed helping her to choose the new decorations…for she decreed that this tree would go in the living room, which meant it had to be perfect. She chose a red and gold scheme: every ornament, every garland, every light was red or gold. Gold angels floated amidst red apples and gold tinsel garland. Golden glittery balls sparkled. My brother David and I will lie under the tree listening to the Christmas records, looking up through the branches at the twinkling lights. We loved our tree.
Fast-forward a few years. I’m an adult, I’ve discovered my own taste in home decor, color schemes and…yes…Christmas trees. Now I look at the family tree and, well, it’s…boring. A few years later, it’s downright comical (more on that tomorrow).
I think part of “putting away childish things” is releasing the notion that whatever one’s family has always done is the best or only way to do things. Sometimes this feels like betrayal. I’ve needed to work towards appreciating things that I don’t agree with anymore. Knowing that my parents loved me and made their own best choices lets me smile on a lot of things that I would not choose myself.
Congregations need to learn this lesson, too. Perhaps governments do, also. Just because our forefathers handled something a certain way doesn’t make it right for us today. But pray for the wisdom to know what is an absolute–was Jesus born of a virgin, born in a stable?–and what is subject to change, like a Christmas tree.
Good grief!
Posted in Christmas memories, films, Meditations, Memories on December 2, 2008| Leave a Comment »
He has a round head and a knobby nose, his dog wins more contests than he ever will, and even his friends all call him a loser. He talks through a megaphone but no one listens to him. And when he chooses a “sincere” Christmas tree, everybody laughs.
I know I’m not eccentric or even unusual in naming A Charlie Brown Christmas as my all-time favorite televised holiday special. I was probably six or seven when I saw it for the first time. Having followed the Sunday Peanuts strip since before I could read, the characters felt to me like old friends. Watching the annual telecast became one of my most-anticipated Christmas rituals.
Snoopy was hilarious, Lucy was exasperating and Linus both wise and kind. But Charlie Brown’s inept sincerity was painful to watch. He made me weep. I so wanted him to be taken seriously. Even at that young age I knew the misery of being misunderstood and the frustration of failure. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you my favorite superhero was Underdog…really.
I got chills the first time Linus stood in the spotlight and spoke the words of Luke 2 into the empty auditorium. And when the Peanuts started to sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” after beautifying Charlie Brown’s tree, I burst into tears.
As a child, it was the loving gesture of decorating his tree, transforming it, that moved me. As an adult, what speaks to me is the larger act of restoration: a community restoring a brother, reviving a broken life. I understand now that the tree is a metaphor for the boy himself, awkward, unwanted, unappreciated. When the unlovely is made lovely, Charlie is affirmed.
Jesus came to seek and save the unlovely (that’s all of us). And He has made us ministers of reconciliation. We are transformed so that we can take part in His ongoing work of transformation. Is there a Charlie Brown in your life? Is there a tiny tree that can be restored and made lovely this Christmas?