Have you ever thought about (or experienced) the frustration or squabbles that ensue while decorating the family Christmas tree? What is supposed to be a fun and satisfying holiday tradition can quickly become a battle of strong opinions and absurd attempts to control the light placement and ornament styling.
This year, our family’s tree became a metaphor for everyday life.
We spent an afternoon decorating it, and what had started as a highly anticipated activity turned into a life lesson by the time we finished. My daughter, Rory, is four years old, and her awareness of, and desire to, celebrate as many holidays as possible has skyrocketed this year. My husband Matt and I took her to a Christmas tree farm, where she walked through all the trees and proudly chose the one to bring home (from the two acceptable options we gave her).
Once we got the tree up in the stand, I climbed into the garage attic and lifted dusty lids off numerous boxes filled with ornaments we’d been gifted or bought as mementos over the years. This year, we chose just a few personal ones that mean the most to us and then filled in the rest with glittery red and silver balls. I stood on a ladder, squirreling my way around the tree, wrapping the lights, trying to make them as even as possible. Rory ecstatically hung her handmade ornaments of painted popsicle sticks and molded clay. All 10 of them clustered in a two-foot area on the lowest two branches of the tree. Each time she added a new one to the already crowded section, I had to take a deep breath and hold back the suggestion that maybe she could choose a different area to hang an ornament in.
By the time we finished, half of the lights had stopped working, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out why. Some of the branches still wouldn’t fall, revealing significant gaps in the trunk. There were empty spots where we missed putting any ornaments. It was the most unconventional and incomplete tree we’ve had yet. Yet, lit up in the darkened front room brought joy and warmth to our home.
Later that evening, my daughter got out of bed to go to the bathroom. Passing by the tree as she walked back to her bedroom, she stopped, looked at it, cheerfully raised her hands above her head, and exclaimed, “Mommy, it’s okay that the lights aren’t working. It’s still so beautiful!”
As usual, I was schooled in the College of Life by my preschooler.
Our days are uneven: lush and plentiful in some areas, barren in others. There are some weeks, months, maybe even years where we are just trying to put one foot in front of the other and maintain some equilibrium, going through the motions. Other times, we’re cruising through new adventures and milestones and checking off the bucket list. Both are important. Those moments when we feel “in the middle,” we are still moving forward. We can plant the seeds for growth and nurture progress to more abundant days in the future.
There are gaping holes that can’t be covered. There will be failures, shortcomings, and difficult times. Be transparent with your struggles and challenges. Writer Annie Dillard stated, "If we want our lives to feel meaningful and have gravity, we need to ensure our days feel meaningful and have gravity, too.” Let the holes in your life remain uncovered so the light can shine through and show you what is possible. You never know when you could be the light for someone’s hope for better days and improvements. Shame cannot survive the light.
No matter what, it’s beautiful if you take the time to look. The effort and love we put into decorating the tree and making it ours is what makes it special. In yogic and Stoic philosophy, all things are neutral. It’s the personal labels we put on things and situations that make them appealing or repulsive to us. With the tree, and in life, we can put a microscope on it, expose all the tiny ugly parts, and deem it awful. Or we can step back, take the entire picture in, and observe it as a whole entity.
Most things we stress about truly don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that Rory’s artistic choice was to put all her ornaments in one spot or that not all the lights don’t work. Trust me, we aren’t in the running for a home decor award from Southern Living. The more we learn to leave “what is” alone, especially the difficult stuff that does matter but we have little to no control over, the more acceptance and contentment will steadily find us. Acceptance also doesn’t mean apathy and disregard. It means knowing what we can change and not letting what we can’t have rent-free space in our brains.
If you view life in bits and pieces, you’ll always change your mind about whether it’s good, joyous, terrible, or tragic. Observed together, all the broken pieces come together, and we can raise our arms in the air and proclaim its beauty. The ordinary, well-lived moments add up to an extraordinary experience.
This week, a visitor to our house commented, “Where are all your ornaments? The tree is pretty bare”. I replied that we added our favorite decorations, what we deemed essential. For me, the experience of this year’s tree will go down in our family history as the most loved and remembered. I pray I feel the same about life as each year closes, hoping the next year will be the best, focused on the beautiful essential pieces of it.
