Giving In
I wrote this blog back in December 2019. We had just moved into our new Studio on Kingston Pike, Eden was not even two years old, and I had no idea I’d be diagnosed with cancer just 7 months from the writing of this.
If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past two years, it’s to let things go. When I started chemo, one of the first things I did was buy sturdy paper plates and napkins in bulk from Costco. I kept them on my kitchen counter, and as people lovingly and faithfully delivered meals to us, we transferred food to paper plates, ate, and threw them in the trash. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t the way I normally operate, with my Leann McQueen handmade pottery beautifully displaying our meal. But it was easy, and some things just had to go.
Spoiler alert: It’s now 2022 and I’ve had a fake tree since 2020. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m in love. And my Fir scented Pura has worked out beautifully. I hope that this post inspires you to look around and edit what needs to be edited. Something is robbing you of joy this season. Something is an Albatross around your neck. A tradition or an obligation or an expectation that needs to be released. Go and do in peace, my friend.
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I’ve had a real Christmas tree my entire life. When I was a small girl in Connecticut, I remember bundling up in boots and a snowsuit to trudge through a chilly Christmas tree farm, where I watched my dad saw a tree down himself. Just Dad, a hand-saw, and two schoolchildren. Lest you think my father is some kind of lumberjack… No: he’s a CPA. This was definitely not our norm.
I only remember one or two of those lumberjack adventures. If my memory is accurate, it was the standard pre-cut fare in the later years. I recall the magic of walking around a makeshift lot and smelling the pine needles. Dad would grab a potential tree by the middle and give it a good pound on the ground to see if the needles would shake off (we’ll pass on dry, pine-dropping trees, thank-you-very-much). We’d walk around a chosen tree and review whether it was too fat, skinny, tall, or short. Is it lopsided? Is there a gap in the branches? Does it smell good? Finally, the prize was loaded onto the car’s roof, tied down with twine, and carefully driven home.
I honestly don’t remember whether Mom was involved in these outings. (I texted my brother just in case I had a memory lapse. He was also foggy—perhaps she stayed warm in the car? We aren’t even sure about that much.) And somehow, I’m not surprised: I’m now a mom, and I’d much rather be waiting at home preparing hot cocoa by the fire than freezing my tootsies off in the inhospitable New England December climate. What was at one point a Grand Winter Adventure with Dad is now seen more clearly through the eyes of a wife and mother: Dad loved his kids, and Dad loved Mom. This was an act of service.
For seventeen years, Ty and I have been married, and for seventeen years, we’ve had a real tree. Ty grew up with a faux tree, as many folks from many families do. It’s just no big thing to him. A tree is a tree: an artifact on which to hang ornaments and a home under which gifts reside. Yet somehow, in my mind, Christmas is not Christmas with a fake tree.
But over these last years, my patience has waned. There are pine needles everywhere. The daily watering. The sap that gets on my fingers and clothes. The stringing of lights. The removing of lights. The cursing. So much cursing while putting on those lights. As it turns out, this dogmatic belief in the ‘right’ kind of tree may become my downfall.
This year, I cried a little bit while putting up the lights. I was mad and frustrated. It all felt so messy. And honestly, I was lonely because I alienated my family with my crankiness about the whole thing. Nobody else cared as much as I felt they should. This Christmas tree had become something way more than it should ever be.
Traditions are delightful until they’re not. Wrapped gifts; unwrapped “Santa gifts,” oranges in the toe of a stocking; the annual cookie exchange; matching family pajamas; Advent calendar; Grandma’s special casserole; dare I say it—Christmas cards in the mail (gasp!). All of these are good things until they usurp the throne. We choose style over substance.
What’s the substance? Emmanuel: God became man. Jesus. Everything else is style. Style can be beautiful, and it can be significant. But if it’s crowding out the substance, then it’s time to let it go.
I decided that 2019 is the last year the Pattison family will have a live Christmas tree. I’m officially releasing the romantic nostalgia and embracing the pre-lit wonder that is a fake tree. I’ve already decided that this January, I’m going to throw my tree to the curb with the lights still wrapped around it just to celebrate. Hopefully, I’ll put my idea of perfection to the curb right along with it. And while I’m at it, I’ll purchase some fir-scented candles on sale, so I’m ready for next year.
Bring on the freedom!
