And So This Is Christmas

I don't have a Christmas tree this year. There are many reasons for this. One is that I'm allergic to real trees, so I can't have one in the house. (Well, that's not exactly true. I could have one in the house, but I couldn't touch it, so it would be a weirdly undecorated tree. I also couldn't water it, so it would be a weirdly undecorated, bone-dry tree that sheds pine needles the way angora sweaters shed fuzzies, which is to say everywhere, at all opportunities.) I can hear you thinking, but one doesn't need to get a real tree. There are all manners of artificial tree -- buy one.

Well, yes.

But.

I live in an apartment. I love my apartment. However, there's not a lot of storage. As in, I have made maximum use of every cabinet and closet and have been quite clever with the "watch as I cram 8 tons of stuff into this 6 ton space whooooo hoooo" department. Good for me. The beauty of the real tree, aside from the real tree being actually lovely and delicious smelling, is that they're ... um ... biodegradable. At the end of the season? Bye bye tree!

Artifical, hypoallergenic trees? They stay with you. Forever.

I have no place to put a tree. That doesn't stop me from thinking Christmas tree thoughts. I keep ALMOST buying one. Go to Target, wind up in the tree section, put smallish, tasteful, pre-lit tree in cart ... and then the reality fairy smacks me in the forehead and asks, in a quiet (yet determined) voice, "And where will this tree live after Christmas?"

Tree goes back on shelf and I slink away, defeated... and it is a definite slinking, because what's more Christmas-y than a tree? Not very much. So off I go without a tree, and with, frankly, not a lot of holiday spirit.

I'm struggling with Christmas this year. Usually, I am a holly jolly jingle bell elf. I like Christmas music. I love my decorations and have been collecting them for years. I wrap the gifts and I watch other people make cookies and I then eat the cookies and I melt Christmas scented candles and I am SUPER FESTIVE DAMMIT.

But without a tree ... and without my family ...

And maybe, at the end of the day, that's the deal. Without my family. I have never spent Christmas so far away from everyone. It's ... quiet. It doesn't bother me very much -- except, of course, for when it does. And when it does, I run to the store, thinking, TREE. As if the tree will be the thing that binds all of my broken holiday bits back together, as if I can depend on some wire and fake pine needles to create a sense of warmth and sentiment in my shabby, patched-up heart. It won't, of course. I don't need a tree to make me feel the holiday. I need my sister, sitting on the floor, passing out gifts. I need my dad, watching us go through our Christmas stockings while he smokes a cigarette in the doorway, drinking coffee and trying desperately to wake up. I need my mom, decorating the mantle while we sing along to the Carpenter's Christmas album.

But as we used to sing: "We greet you a friend and welcome a stranger/Let him sing and cheer him on his way"; there's been a good deal of that, too. People are welcoming and lovely. My friends -- the family I've made, the people I love -- have gone well out of their way to make me part of their families, so I won't be lonely or sad. If there's anything that makes me realize how alive and vibrant the holidays are, it is that: people are so giving this time of year. Not just with gifts and things, but giving of themselves. Their time. Their caring.

It's true, I don't have a Christmas tree, and I'm not being terribly festive this year. But for all of that, I also have to say that I have never seen the spirit of Christmas move so freely and joyfully through others. Maybe I needed to be a little apart to see and appreciate it -- and to take it in and try to incorporate that into my daily life. After all, it's more easily stored -- and more easily shared -- than any kind of Christmas tree I could buy.

(As a side note: if you are in the market for a real tree, and you live in Southern Maine/Southern New Hampshire, there's no better place for a tree than Riverside Farm. Check them out here: www.riversidefarmstand.com )