Making Real Holiday Memories

Our Christmas tree this year is a little more Charlie Brown than Rockefeller Center, gaps in the branches letting in the light streaming through the windows.

Despite the promise shown at the store, our tree has proven to be the final cog in my husband’s case for an artificial tree, an argument that began on Thanksgiving Day, when my brother proclaimed they were getting an artificial tree this year.

My reluctance to leave our real fir at the curb for recycling for the last time has less to do with the joy I get from a real tree and more to do with the memories hidden within the branches already shedding needles at an alarming rate.

I can see my parents walking up and down rows of trees, holding one than another at arms’ length, gauging the straightness of the trunk, the symmetry of the branches, the ability to hide the sparser sections in the corner of the room.

I can feel my nose tightening in the cold, breath warm within my scarf, digging gloved fingers deeper into my coat pockets as I pushed snow around with the toes of my boots.

The warm blast of air from my mother’s kitchen floats through my mind, wrapping me warmly in the anticipation of knowing we would have to wait patiently, maybe as long as twenty-four hours, before the branches relaxed from the cold enough to hang ropes of gold garland and multi-colored lights.

My family’s prized ornament gently hangs on my mother’s real tree in the same spot each year, a faded red candle my dad made in first grade is always front and center, out of the reach of little fingers not yet ready to understand that paper and glue can be more valuable than delicate glass bulbs.

These memories hang in my mind tied to the sap-infused branches of a real Christmas tree.

Artificial trees come out of boxes.

My lower lip trembled into a pout at the thought of giving up a real tree, the thought of depriving my kids of those memories pulled freshly to the surface each time I smell the freshly cut branches of a Christmas tree.

So I sought the words of the wise Dr. Seuss:

Memories and magic and tradition aren’t linked to the tree.

They’re linked to my mother’s no-nonsense choice of a tree short enough to be easily decorated by my short family.

They’re linked to my dad’s eyes sparkling bluely between his beard and a Carhartt hat.

Next year, our tree will likely come from a box, twinkling with hundreds of already-attached lights.

But our holiday memories? Those will come from me.

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