Walking the Wall

Setting up the Christmas tree this year was even more precious than usual with Michael just home from the hospital. We usually set up our tree the day after Thanksgiving so we can enjoy it the whole next month–this year we waited for Michael to get home and then the next night had a tree trimming party. My mom, sisters, sister’s boyfriend, nieces, and us all got together to make what I think is our most beautiful tree yet. It helped that we got a new tree this year that is 9 feet tall–when I first popped home for a shower and saw it standing there where my husband had put it together–I was a bit stunned at the height and not sure it would really work. Still, a brand new, pre-lit, 9 foot tree that was given to us for free from a gracious client of my husband’s who ended up with two extra when decorating a big building for the holidays would just have to work, tall or not!

The truth is, we needed the extra space. Last year I had to ditch all the bulbs and just do ornaments because there was no room for bulbs–and even then the ornaments were crammed on pretty tight. I don’t like to get rid of ornaments, though, and they multiply! Each one is precious and holds a memory that I suppose will someday force me to have more than one Christmas tree, or I could start finding another way to decorate with ornaments as well. Regardless, we had a lovely time of cookies and snacks and Christmas music from both the iPod and the record player–because, really, the only way to listen to the Carpenter’s Christmas is on the record player.

For me, Christmas is all about hope. Hope that there is a better way to do this thing called living, that there is a different way that is about love and compassion for ourselves and others. That’s what the nativity says to me–it says the old way of sacrifices, wars and bloodshed, and eye for an eye just didn’t work and so here, here is a new way to try. Someone pointed out to me that December 8th was the celebrated date of Buddha’s enlightenment under a Bodhi tree. While I doubt we know the historical date of that, just as I doubt Jesus was born on December 25th–it’s not about a date and they are both really a celebration of the same thing. Hope. Living in extreme luxury didn’t work for Siddhartha Gautama, living in extreme asceticism didn’t work either–now here’s another way that is about love and compassion for ourselves and others.

Hope. Love. Compassion. They seem like very good reasons to celebrate to me.

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“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh