Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Please, no tree shaming.

I’ve been admiring all the Facebook posts of friends dedicated to honoring the sacred season of Advent. They are setting aside 15 minutes a day for silence and prayer; reading a daily devotional; lighting candles; and engaging in Bible study. They are also abstaining from Christmas decorations and carols. It’s Advent, after all. Prepare your hearts. Christmas doesn’t begin until December 25.

I get all that. I do. But for me, putting up our family Christmas tree is one of the ways I prepare my heart for the coming of the Christ child. We don’t have the Martha Stewart, color-coordinated tree with themes like woodland tree or pinecone heaven. Our tree is messy and mixed up, gobs of ornaments in the prime real estate, the reindeer handprint head next to a stained glass orb from the National Cathedral.

Our family custom has been to buy an ornament from each place we travel. As we’re unwrapping the ornaments, we recall wonderful vacations, times when we focused on each other, not our work or school. When we felt the spray from Niagara Falls, the wonder of Mount Rushmore. The magic of Disney World and the exuberance of our Caribbean honeymoon. 

Each ornament is about relationship, about the times we got it right with each other. There’s the ice cream cone ornament the kids made with my mom, and the Nemo fish that reminds me, time and again, of my son at three years old begging for Nemo’s mom to swim away from the shark and the comfort he sought in my arms when she didn’t. The clothespin Boy Scout, thirty-five years old, connects father to son, and an old clay candy cane recalls stories of elementary school and favorite teachers. The tag from a present, too beautiful to discard, hangs from a branch, the last gift given to my husband from his beloved grandfather. 

And we have the array of handmade ornaments crafted out of dog biscuits (true), popsicle sticks, construction paper, pipe cleaners, and tissues (also true). These ornament snapshots capture our children at ages three and five and seven, their adeptness with glue sticks and markers growing with each passing year. 

I get the importance of resisting consumerism during Advent. I want to set apart this time of expectation and anticipation. It should be special and different and divine. For me, our Christmas tree leads me to Christ, not away; it brings me back to the importance of being in relationship, of joying in time together, of treasuring the gifts given by God. 

Having my tree decorated on December 2 may not be very Episcopal-PC. But for me, it is an important part of how I prepare for the coming nativity.

Don't miss a blog post! Subscribe via email or RSS, using the grey box on the upper right.