Why do people buy their Christmas trees even before the first of December? With the best of care they will be dry as tinder by Christmas morning. Yet, every day I see car after car with trees strapped to the top, on their way to someone's home, to drop needle after needle into the carpet or onto the floor. Next Christmas some of those needles will still be hiding in a corner or beneath a baseboard. I wonder how many needles will accumulate over the years? Just askin'.
We will be among those who (eventually) will pick out a plump, tall, wonderfully odiferous tree. It is hoped that needles will not fall until after the celebratory day. Soon - soon it will be placed before the large living room window, full of treasured ornaments, always a new one added for the year. It will be aglow with lights too numerous to count, admired fondly from inside the house and offering passersby a share in the traditional beacon, welcoming Christ's birth. The evergreen symbolizes eternity, a circle of life neverending, a fitting icon for this season.
I was reading T.S. Eliot this morning and came across a poem worthy of contemplation, particularly at my age, as you will see, but with a theme that touches us all
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The Cultivation of Christmas Trees
There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish - which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,
So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or in the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to the children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):
So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By "eightieth" meaning whichever is the last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.
12/6/11
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Not to be read and digested as a "downer," but as facing our humanity, from the first joys of childhood's Christmas to the reality of progression to our last, whenever that may be. Eliot ends the poem with what the first and second Sundays of Advent tell us - of the first coming and the second coming - both to be anticipated, yes with the "fear" natural to our human nature, but also the "joy" of the soul returning to God.
The "first coming of the second coming" refers to our own personal end of the world. We hope it is indeed a Joyful one.
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