Nearly every family has Christmas traditions. Ours includes having a real Christmas tree. Just any old pine tree won’t do.
Fortunately I have a husband who understands how important it is that the tree is absolutely right. So when it came to a choice between getting a tree we weren’t happy with or going back later for a fresh tree, I knew he would agree we needed to go back.
The tree we eventually got is beautiful. Just as well. The first question our daughter asked yesterday on the phone when I told her we’d bought it was, ‘what is the tree like?’
Then she started to reminisce about trees past and Christmases past. She’s an adult now with a family of her own but she has many memories of the whole experience of choosing the Christmas tree. Sometimes the tree can be perfectly straight and well proportioned. Other times they may not be quite so. That is the charm of buying a real tree.
Decorating the tree accompanied by Christmas carols playing in the background was one of our family traditions. The first year we had to decorate a tree without her our daughter found quite unsettling.
Mick and I spent yesterday afternoon decorating the tree with the decorations which have been around for many years. As we take them out of the suitcase where they were stored and then out of their boxes, each one speaks to us of its own memories of Christmases past. I thank God for those Christmases together we have had.
Our daughter is looking forward to coming at Christmas and seeing the tree. She’s is also looking ahead to the traditions she and her husband will be building over the years for their family. Grandchildren are excited too about coming down and seeing the tree. That’s one of the special things of Christmas having family together and celebrating the birth of Jesus together.
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