While growing up, Christmas in my family, no matter how old I was, always entailed a night service at church, a ride home from church in the car with the whole family singing hymns, and sipping hot cocoa until midnight before finally tottering off to bed in anticipation of candy for breakfast served in an old sock. But what Christmas didn’t mean was a real Christmas tree.
Our tree was something fake and plastic and not even green, but white, which I suppose was fitting, given that the ornaments were all basic silver orbs bought from the local dollar store with not much heart and soul in them. Some say that a plastic tree is worse than a cut one for the environment, and others hold the opposite view. I do not have that answer, but I do think plastic ones are a bit soulless. What do you think? Anyway, I finally experienced a new way to celebrate.
I was a new bride, and my husband insisted on a tree, and I insisted on a live tree that we could plant. The feeling of a real tree is unparalleled. Now, several years later we have a Christmas tradition of planting our tree. And, once it is planted we adorn it with old-fashioned stringed popcorn and cranberries for the birds to enjoy.
