The shiny Christmas tree

Do you have any Christmas traditions? she asked me as I settled into the chair for my (traditional) pre-Christmas haircut.  As with all of my tonsorial events during the year, it would be an ultimately vain attempt to bring neatness to my naturally shaggy crown.  But, it was a few days before the holiday, and it's traditional for me to do this.

Yes, of course, we see a Christmas show, have get-togethers with family and friends, decorate with a tree, all that sort of stuff -- I answered her question, wanting to be friendly, but also not wanting to prolong my time in the chair (getting a haircut never has been one of my favorite activities) and besides, this was my introduction to this particular stylist (is that the right way to name her job?) so I wasn't sure where the conversation was going.

But I decided to take a plunge into the unknown,
so I looked at her, smiled, and reciprocated -- How about you? I asked.  What kind of Christmas traditions do you have?

Well, she said, that's kind of tough for me right now because I just moved here from Atlanta a couple of months ago; but I've been cutting hair for twelve years -- she added that last part quickly, probably to allay my evident concerns.

She continued -- My family and relatives are still in Atlanta, she said, and I'm living in a real small place so I don't have room to put up a tree--I'm going to miss that--but my mother and brother are coming to visit over Christmas and we already have plans set to stay in a nice place by Sequoia National Park and see the big redwood trees.  We'll have fun!

(I didn't tell her that the redwoods are someplace else.  They will see lots of nice big trees, anyway, and have a great time.)

Traditions are powerful things.  They, and their attendant symbols, are the overt homages for social groupings as varied as cultures, religions, clubs, secret societies and nations.  Mere trappings in some ways, yet enduring.  They become a part of us, and we want to do them over and over again, maybe because even though they might be old, they never seem to become old.  Sometimes we have to skip them for a while, but a link always seems to be there.  We come back to them.

This young woman had recently changed her life.  It was a big deal.  She's going to miss that traditional Christmas tree, but she will still have a family gathering, and maybe they will put a decoration or two on a hundred foot tall Sequoia tree that has seen five hundred or more Christmases and start a new Christmas tradition for herself and her family.  The new links to the old, and the old becomes the new.

When it comes to tradition, can it be new or different and still be a part of the old way?  Yes, I think so, but remembering origins is important, and some care in making the change is needed.

Here in balmy, sunny Southern California many feel almost compelled to light a fire in the fireplace on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  Why do we even have fireplaces in our houses here?  (Many do not.)  Most homes do not need them for warmth--central heating works better, is cleaner and generally less expensive.  For those without fireplaces, it's easy to go to the store and buy a plug-in electric thing that looks like a real fireplace complete with burning logs (but no smoke).

So, we rationalize by saying "it's for the ambiance" or "it's the season."  True enough, but there's more of tradition than there is of mere ambiance in the Yule-time mesmerizing dance of low flames from a damped-down, long-lasting fire in the fireplace.

We of this Anglo, northern European, North American Christian culture tend to synonymize Christmas and Yule.  And well that we should do so, for the Yule--and the burning of the Yule log--are deep in our ancestry, predating Christianity by centuries.  We left the familiar embrace of the woodlands and forests which had long provided safety, sustenance and warmth from cast-off branches and lightning-struck evergreens.  A new culture was adopted, but the newness had to accept the old traditions, too.

Eventually, we brought the tree into our homes.  In doing so, we have enjoyed the return of familiarity and the periodic, renewed acquaintance with an old friend--or, at the least, the pleasure of periodic visits with one that is a descendent of an old friend.  As with the Yule, it's not exclusively Christian and can be easily shared for enjoyment with those from other beliefs or faiths.  I know of no reason why a Christmas tree cannot be graced with a six-pointed star.  Children, a central element of Christmas traditions, are predictably enthusiastic about bringing this part of the outside to the inside of the home.  They revel in its reality and are happy to share it with all others who come by to admire its beauty.

Although sometimes the enjoyment can be--well, what's the word to use here?  diminished?  lessened?  moderated?  compromised?  Yes, that's it--compromised.  Sometimes the enjoyment can be compromised where there's a surprising change to the Christmas tree.

It was in the early '60s that a changed Christmas tree appeared.  We were young, my sister and I, but not too young.  Not yet at that age when we knew everything (the same future age in which we would not be able to realize that we then knew almost nothing), but just past the age where we felt that there were a few things that we were starting to know, and well past the age when we didn't know enough to know that we were supposed to care about knowing.  It was an awkward time, but one that still included plenty of childish excitement.  Christmastime, and everything that we felt was a part of it, was important.

We had grown up with a family tradition that early in December--every December--the family would travel to a nearby Christmas tree lot and select a fine specimen of Douglas fir as a Christmas tree for the front room of the family home.  Nicely shaped, not too tall, definitely not too short, green and with a nice fragrance.  Bring it home, set it up with lots of water in the stand, put the lights on it and decorate!

Year after year, Christmas after Christmas, this was the tradition.  Until our parents, possibly with the fine intention of joining the Space Age--it was the age of Mercury, Gemini, satellites--didn't take us to the Christmas tree lot.  There was no search for the perfect Douglas fir--not too tall, definitely not too short, nice shape and fragrance--none of that happened.

Instead, what appeared in the front room--without the services of the local Christmas tree lot--was an artificial Christmas tree.  And it wasn't even trying to look like a proper tree.

It was shiny.

It was an aluminum tree.  It shone with the reflected brilliance of the alternating red-green-blue floor spotlight that was aimed up at it from behind (no electric light strands on an aluminum tree for safety's sake!).  The gears in the spotlight made a funny grinding sound.  The ornaments we placed on the tree showed well, but the design of the aluminum "needles" restricted the number of ornaments and decorations that could be hung.  Many were left behind in their storage boxes.

Boy, was that tree shiny!

It was our Christmas tree for that year.  We gave it a try, all of us.  Memory fades with time, of course, but my guess is that on Christmas morning the tree's shininess was less apparent.  By mid-day, however, it was once again that which it unfortunately really was--a shiny Christmas tree.

If it was used for a second Christmas, that memory has been buried so far back in the inner recesses of my mind that I cannot dredge it out.  That's just as well.

Decades of Christmases have come and gone.  My front rooms have always had fresh, fragrant, green Christmas trees.  Eventually, there may come a time when the realities of personal age will require a compromise of some sort.  For my parents in their later years, the compromise was an artificial tree, but it was green, and definitely not shiny. It worked well for them.

Traditions define us and bind us.  Traditions help us to know where we have come from, and they help us to belong to something bigger than we are as an individual.  Traditions can change and evolve as they adapt to changes in the world around them.

Most changes work out well.

But don't ask me to change to a shiny Christmas tree.  That's one change that won't ever work out for the better.