The Christmas Tree

For the first time since my wife and I were married over 55 years ago, we are thinking of not having a real Christmas tree this year. We do consider ourselves blest to have each other and still be in relatively good health after all these years. But our six children have left the house and have their own families, and I'm not sure how many of our 16 grandchildren will visit us this Christmas season. One of them will even be in Tahiti with his mom and dad on a destination holiday. I'm not sure we will even be able to see our first great-grandchild who will only be three months old.

As we have gotten older, our trees have gotten smaller and smaller, and the gifts around its base sparser and sparser. But I've been reading some of my past Christmas posts and found this one from 2015 that might make us change our minds. Best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Christmas tree remains one of the most popular symbols of the Christmas season. Whether a simple tree in our home or the most magnificently decorated tree in a public place like Rockefeller Center the tree bears the same meaning.

In a wonderful book on so-called children's stories entitled "The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove",  G. Ronald Murphy S.J. explained the origins and meaning of the tree and its decorations. 

The evergreen tree has found its most lasting and most emotional place in our culture, without a doubt, in the Christmas tree, an amalgam of Germanic legend and the Cross. In December of every year the tree comes into the house. A tree inside the home after all the centuries that have passed is quite miracle enough. To glorify and celebrate its ancient, compassionate magic power, it is decorated with lights (with burning candles in Germany!) and with tinsel, to make sure it looks radiantly stolid and happy despite the cold and ice. Then a star is placed at its peak, since Wise Men must surely find their way to this tree. Below the tree, as if he had just emerged from its trunk, the true source of the warmth of the Tree of the Universe and its power to renew life, encouragement, and protection against all the kinds of cold, is lying in a manger: the newborn child. 

                         O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
                        how faithful are your leaves.
                        you are ever green, not only during the summer,
                        but even during the winter when the snow falls.
                        O Tannenbaum, O tannenbaum,
                        how faithful are your leaves.

Click here for a brief video of the song that contains a clip from Joyeux Noel, a French film about the well-known Christmas battlefield truce in the first year of WWI. Or view the video below.