We set up our Christmas tree last night.
No, not the night before you read this or even the night before this went to press, but the night that I am writing this, which is, if you must know, Dec 1.
I—and this is going to sound odd to all those people out there who read these—I love Christmas trees, and especially Christmas tree lights. (That was sarcasm; I write a lot about things I love.)
Getting up to go to the bathroom and walking out of our bedroom for the first time to see it shining in the darkness? Inspired me. It’s three in the morning and I’m writing this, because looking at the lit tree just filled my heart with so much warmth and my head with so many ideas.
I used to sleep out under the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve. You know after the whole antasay is otnay ealray thing.
Actually, that’s not quite true. One of my earliest memories was sneaking down from the second floor bedroom I occupied as a child. I was going to spot Santa. I was four, maybe five. Maybe three. This was in the house we owned on Main Street in the town I grew up in, attached to the restaurant that we owned.
I sat at the top of the stairs, gazing down at the tree, at the living room lit by the tree. It sits like a Rockwell painting in my mind, homey and speaking of family.
After making sure there was nobody there (Santa, my parents), I crept down to the bottom of the stairs, then made a mad dash past the bathroom, past the door to the kitchen, then hopped up and over the couch and slid behind.
My landing was not the soft descent onto the carpet I was expecting, but interrupted painfully (and I’m almost embarrassed to say this, because it’s so cliché) by the sled my parents had hid back there to give to me the next morning.I ignored the sled (one of those classic wooden ones for sliding down hills) the best that I could and lay there on the floor, eyes focused on the base of the tree, on the room bathed in the soft glowing of the coloured lights.
I was quivering with excitement, with the thought of catching Santa in the act. With the sight of all those presents, with the knowledge that I had got a sled!
I was asleep within ten minutes.
Anyway. Sometime around the time that I was in college, I decided that I was going to make sleeping beneath the tree a Christmas tradition. So I’d grab a pillow and a blanket and sleep on the couch, or, if I was feeling really fancy, I’d bring an air mattress, and just lay there, watching the lights on the tree until I finally passed out.
Once married, I tried to convince Colette to join me, which she did. Once. Then she declared she had better things to do with her time, and went back to the bedroom.
Forced to choose between my made up tradition and my wife? Well the wife won out, and it’s been many a year since I’ve spend the entire night at the tree.
But I still love the look of the Christmas tree. There’s just something special about the light it casts.
There’s this idea that darkness stands the opposite of light, but it’s not. It’s merely the absence of light.
It might seem dark and hopeless, but all you need? Is one light.
Indeed, the darker it is, the more obvious it is that a light is shining.
As I was coming down to my office to write the story, I was keenly aware of all the other lights on the way. The LCD on the microwave. The soft pulsing blue of the light on the water heater, shining through the air vent.
The orange-ish glow of the lights recharging in the basement. Even the harsh blue lights from the lock on my office door when I push the lights on button, or the single overhead bulb shining brightly in the office once I open the door (whoops. Forgot to turn it off when I went to bed.)
But the light from the Christmas tree? It’s not like any of those.
I think it’s because it is dozens of lights, maybe hundreds, all working together, all casting their individual tiny glow that adds up to be a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
This little light of mine…
And of course, being a writer, I can’t help but think that the light of a Christmas tree is a perfect metaphor for how we are to be as a community. Each shining in our own little way. Some of us are metaphorically green lights, some, metaphorically blue. Some red or yellow or, if you have one of those really fancy trees, another colour like purple or, I don’t know, chartreuse. All helping to bring light to the world. All shining in our own way, and it doesn’t matter what colour the light we cast.
Christmas time is a time where Christians celebrate the light, entering into the world.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it.
But it’s also a time where many people in the Northern Hemisphere shine lights into the darkness:
In Norway, they would burn the Yule log. In Sweden, young women would walk into the dark, bringing candles. And in North America, the Hopi people would celebrate Soyal, marking the end of the progression of the year towards darkness, and the beginning of the return of light.
So, as we hit the darkest time of the year. Remember the light. Indeed, be the light. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
That is officially the end of the editorial, but I still have a few lines. I could use them to ask you to subscribe to the paper, as this is a community paper, for, and by the community.
But I wanted to instead thank all the companies and organizations who have advertised over the year. The whole point of the newspaper is to let people know what’s happening in the community, and while that might be me writing about stuff, it’s also businesses telling you about what they’re doing.
Indeed, this issue is a little heavier on ads that normal. A lot of those are businesses in the community wishing you Merry Christmas. You know what? You should go and wish them Merry Christmas right back.
Enjoy this time of year, however you celebrate it. See you in the new year.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
