The Reject Tree

The Grinch could have Christmas for all I cared. There was no need to even steal it - I would have given it to him and his sidekick dog without protest. And while we’re at it, I’ll freely admit that I sympathized with Scrooge and even inwardly shouted “Ba Humbug!” every day of the Advent season. I became very passive aggressive, I think.

That Christmas spirit simply eluded me. Maybe it was my already hectic schedule or my slightly underactive thyroid, but I just couldn’t get excited at that time of year. Commercials and shows and movies portrayed this gosh-darn perfect Christmas world full of happy and cheerful people with rosy cheeks. And every year, I desperately strived to be like them. But I could never achieve their level of perfect Christmas spirit no matter how hard I tried.

All that effort was exhausting, really. I was tired of starting the season of perfection with Christmas budgeting, planning, and shopping just after Independence Day. I was tired of trying to get perfect pictures of our daughters in perfect matching outfits in the hot August sun. I was tired of addressing and signing hundreds of perfect Christmas cards containing said perfect pictures just after Labor Day. I was tired of pretending I’m Martha while trying to bake dozens of perfect cookies that just make me fat and my kids hyper in October. I was tired of getting out the perfect decorations every Thanksgiving weekend, which only created more clutter for me to dust. And let’s not forget the perfect meals, outings, parties, wrappings, tree, ornaments, animated reindeer in the front yard - you name - it in December.

I’m hyperventilating even as I type.

One gray day in December, after a long and stressful, six month journey towards holiday bliss, I found myself singing along to Amy Grant’s version of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Only I changed a word. And then I went everywhere growling (as my oldest daughter called it in her ad lib Mother’s Day card) and singing this Kim Gottschild Adapted Version at the top of my lungs: “It’s the LEAST wonderful time of the year!!!!”

It became my mantra. My coping mechanism. (And my skin had an eerily greenish tint to it instead of those rosy cheeks I had been hoping for.)

I was, indeed, passive aggressive. And I realized that I needed serious help before this aggression turned not so passive. I needed intercession, for the sake of the children, before I started to do something crazy like intentionally burn the cookies or buy everyone new sheets from Santa. (Oh, wait-I did that once.) So I asked God to come to my aid. But my plea for help was covered in embarrassment, seeing as the whole entire point of the holiday is to celebrate the birth of His Son, our Savior. I mean, really. How do you tell your God that you strongly dislike His Son’s (you know, that one who died for your sins) giant birthday party?

Ouch.

Well, God seems to love His party poopers, too, and assistance came that Christmas season in the form of a sorry little Douglas Fir.

In previous years we had used my sister-in-law’s hand-me-down fake tree that she discarded after her divorce. She hated it, never liked it. We loved it; it was free. But after our new rescue dog marked it about twenty times to establish his territory, we decided to hose it down and sell it at the neighbor’s garage sale. Seizing the opportunity, my husband felt it was time for us to start afresh, German style. As a kid in Germany, his family would go get a live tree on Christmas Eve. We thought this would be a fun and new tradition for us, too, and we were thrilled about having the smell of pine waft through our home, instead of, well, never mind. But we didn’t want to wait until Christmas Eve, since that might be too late, so we waited until Christmas Eve Eve to go hunt down our perfect, fresh tree.

Little did we know, all the fresh trees are snatched up by, like, Thanksgiving. The salespeople literally laughed at me at Lowe’s and told me there weren’t any trees around for miles. Feeling mocked, I purchased a stand and lights at 75% off for our phantom perfect tree and left, humming, “Hm hm HMMMMMMM hm hm hm hmmmmm hm hm hmmmmmmmm!!!”

Not yet discouraged, but still humming, we drove around eternally in the dark and bitter cold, the girls all bundled up like the abominable snowman in the backseat, until I remembered that the church where we were married, which I passed every day on the way to school, sold Christmas trees. Maybe they had some left?

Oh, they definitely had some left. Rejects. They had reject trees left. I felt like Lucy yelling at Charlie Brown, “You call that a tree?” There were four or five dried out, droopy, lop-sided trees that no one wanted. So much for having that perfect tree, we moped. But we got excited about getting a tree at 50% off, so we stuffed one into the van on top of the girls and drove home. Then we picked the sap out of their hair and went to bed.

Christmas Eve morning I awoke and came downstairs to have a good look at the wimpy tree in the clearance-priced stand. It was still lopsided of course (nothing could be done to make up for poor tree genes or lack of sufficient sunlight as a seedling), the droopy side hidden into the corner, but otherwise the tree actually didn’t look quite as sad and pathetic as it had that dark, cold, and snowy night before. The warmth and the water seemed to give the tree a new lease on life as it looked fuller and greener and perkier. My husband came down, stood next to me, and tilted his head to one side. We looked at each other, saying in very Linus-like fashion, It’s not such a bad tree.

My husband then strung the multi-color, glowing lights on the tree. And the girls hung our family’s traditional ornaments on its branches. Last, my husband placed the golden star on top and I, still humming, displayed the presents underneath. The tree stood there majestically, beaming as if to say, somebody loves me enough to buy me and get me all dressed up!

And it was perfect.

I don’t know how, but something in me, inside my heart, shifted. And softened. I noticed how the lights so nicely filled the dark voids that had once made the tree look so undesirable. The homemade ornaments that hung on the tree gave it character and personality, and even told a story. And the presents we placed underneath gave the tree a certain importance, or purpose. No longer humming, I took a step back, and I gasped softly, for it was suddenly and unexpectedly very clear to me:

I am the tree.

I am lopsided, and, let’s face it, a bit dried out, hiding in my own corner of sorts, armed with moisturizer for sensitive skin. I respond rather positively to warmth, explaining my affinity for saunas and hot tubs. I, more often than not, have been thirsty, and not just for water. I need light to chase out the voids in me. I have ornaments that decorate me, and are maybe even engraved, like stretch marks, which embellish me and tell my story. I have gifts, beneath the surface, which have been bestowed upon me and are just waiting to be opened.

Mulling over this for a while, I began to wonder: Who has loved me despite my lack of symmetry and struggle with gravity? Who finds me crouching in the corner and tells me I need not hide? Who has quenched my thirst in a way that Gatorade could only dream of? Whose light fills the void, the vast expanses of emptiness within my soul? Who appreciates the ornaments, the character, the laugh lines? Who is encouraging me to open those presents, those gifts, for the whole world to see? And, most importantly, who bought me, the imperfect reject tree? Who? WHO?

Why, the birthday boy, of course.

Oh, and I was a party pooper, missing out on all the fun because my holiday centerpieces didn’t turn out right and I didn’t have the money to have them professionally made.

Suddenly, I ached with remorse. And I became frustrated with myself and society that I had been sucked into the endless trap of perfection, attempting to celebrate what Jesus was born to eradicate to begin with. I had let society dupe me into thinking that the point of this Christmas holiday was not to rejoice in the unconditional love and acceptance of my Savior, who was born on Christmas Day, but to celebrate our own efforts at perfection, becoming more extreme every year with new and improved pre-lit perfect fake trees, stylish dinnerware, celebrity endorsed recipes, and Christmas colored Ziploc bags - all promising to help us transform our homes into the set of Home Alone thus creating the perfect holiday atmosphere in which to throw our perfect holiday dinners and brunches.

And worst of all, through my many fatiguing attempts at celebrating Christmas perfectly, I had failed to see what Jesus came to make perfect, which wasn’t cookies or pictures or parties or cards or reindeer - but me. Us. All of us.

My cheeks then glowing with excitement at this revelation, I felt energetic and full of spirit, though this was not the same Christmas spirit that I had chased all those years. No, this was different. This was the Spirit of Christ. I liked it. And I still do.

No longer a party pooper, I now attend the birthday party every year, to worship and praise the Christ child who was born to save us from our imperfections. I arrive just as I am - a thirsty and droopy tree-like person, constantly losing needles and desperately needing a string of lights to chase out the darkness, yet energized and refreshed by the grace I’ve been shown. And I sing:

“It’s the MOST Wonderful time of the year!”