I haven't had a live Christmas Tree in my home in many years. Though I've always loved them, and went out of my way to get one my very first year in my first apartment in New York and for many years after that, for some reason for while now it's just seemed too much. Too big, too cumbersome, too much work, too expensive, too much time and too much effort for something that doesn't last very long. And then there are the pine needles that get everywhere and still show up years later. For some reason I just haven't gotten one, though every year I think about how much I love them, and then in the past few years when I've had the opportunity to decorate at YES Gallery, I've decorated windows and tree branches and my vintage recycled wood tree, and I've decorated all over the gallery in so many ways, but not with a live Christmas Tree.
This year I was really feeling like I wanted a tree, a real, live one, but all of the just too much thoughts kept coming whenever the little girl inside said but I want one. She kept saying it, and I kept finding all the reasons to try to reason her out of it, but it was there all the same that I wanted a tree. Then one day last week, a few days before Christmas Eve, as I was on my way home a neighbor was giving away the most beautiful tree. It was just gorgeous and perfect in every way, big enough to feel like a real tree but not so big that I couldn't carry it the few blocks home and bring it inside. It also had a double top, something that my grandmother always said was good luck, and it was fresh and new and so beautiful that it seemed like it had fallen out of a dream come true.
Sometimes the things we want, though they may seem impractical to our very practical adult selves, can bring so much joy to that child inside that it's worth taking the time and effort for them. This tree is a double blessing and a triple and quadruple one, with the amount of joy it's brought me and with the unexpected blessing of finding it, a gift from a neighbor who for some reason decided to bless me with it. Answered prayer can come in so many ways, and when we allow God to answer them and open ourselves up to the miracles of possibility, a tree that we've been longing for might bring back beautiful times and memories and emotions we'd forgotten or didn't know we even had. This sweet tree has brought back so much to me, of joy, life, love and beauty, and of the memories of my first Christmas in New York and those before and after that made life feel rich and sweet and new and filled with the wonder of Christmas and this very special holiday season.
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