My Christmas tree: A Gateway to Christmas
I just finished setting up my Christmas tree. My mom had been preparing me all week to do it on the weekend. Ah, I love how she knows me so well sometimes. She knew that she had to give me signs for me to prepare myself that this weekend, I had to do something other than lay around in my bed and say, ‘I get only 2 days off and they’re mine!’
As I said, I set it up and it looks pretty good. I obviously didn’t love the messy portion of it where I had to work around the lights but it was worth it. Our Christmas tree is a plastic look-alike of a real Christmas tree. It’s just about 4 feet tall and is 10 years old now. It looks like an old midget, hunched and leaning to the side, but ready to spread joy this season too.
As I was patiently spreading its plastic branches, my mausi (maternal aunt) said, “You’re taking so much care with the tree, like an innocent child.”
I said, “Yeah. It may be old and a little battered down, but it’s still ours. Remember the day we bought it?”
This led to a series of recounts of the day we bought our cute little Christmas tree. Long story short, 10 years ago, we were going through a rough patch. Money was tight, that’s all I can say. A year ago that, we’d shifted to Delhi from the city of Lucknow, and while making the shift, we’d let go of the Christmas tree we had then. I remember sitting in our drawing-room in 2010, peacefully accepting that we won’t be celebrating Christmas that year. Even though buying a small Christmas tree wasn’t too much of an expense, we weren’t in the best of spirits to actually consider celebrating Christmas.
Then, at 8 o’clock in the evening, my elder sister comes home from college and decides to go to the nearby market (along with my aunt) and buy a Christmas tree. And they did.
Looking at it now brings back a rush of memories. That tree, which was bought as a will-have-to-do-with-this-one-since-nothing-better-was-available has seen many changes over the past 10 years. It has seen me slog through the night during my school and college days, sitting beside it and studying. It has been a witness to our pointless family discussions. It has seen its biggest champion, my sister, get married and move abroad. It has seen our dog die beside it, just 2 days after Christmas.
Our tree has grown up and aged just as we have. It has evolved and endured, along with us. Each year, my sister and I would add something new to our collection of Christmas hangings and let go of some of the old ones. This way the tree always upholds something new, something old and yes, something borrowed.
Growing up, both me and my sister studied in Convent schools and that’s how we actually became fond of Christmas. We’d both sing Christmas carols weeks before Christmas would arrive and attend the Christmas fair hosted by her school. For a week, a play would go on wherein students enacted the birth and life of Jesus on stage, there’d be multiple stalls to eat from and the sound of hymns resonating all around.
Our tree is our Christmas. It’s everything that Christmas means to us. It’s like a fairy who travels around the world all year round and then comes home at the end of it, filled with love, warmth and cheerful surprises.
Merry Christmas!
