Christmas is really over…

In so far as the church calendar was concerned, the season of Christmas ended yesterday, with the Baptism of the Lord. – yes, we move quickly from the Epiphany and the appearance of the Three Kings and right on to Jordan and Jesus telling John the Baptizer to baptize him, even over John’s objections…kind of like when a Catholic says, “do we really have to do that bow during the Credo, father?” And the priest shrugs and says, “it’s in the liturgy.”

But for me Christmas is really over today, because today I am taking down the Christmas tree. Meant to do it on Sunday but I had that flu-ey thing going on – and it seems kind of nice, to take the tree down when Christmas is “officially” over.

I don’t know why it is, but the tree goes up so fast – but it seems to take forever to take down. Part of it is the brittleness of the branches, and the fragile needles. While I’m not a “neat freak” I do have a horror of crumbs on a table or counter, toast sweat, (you know, when someone butters a piece of toast on the counter, and the crumbs and condensation leave a sweaty muck, there? Ewwww.) and of tree needles all over the house. And it’s odd, too, to realize that as a tree drys out, it seems to cling greedily to everying adorning it. You reach in and touch one branch and thousands of needles fall – like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree – and yet whatever it is you’re trying to remove becomes entrenched, and you must wrestle with the tree to retrieve your Winnie the Pooh plastic ornament from Hallmark, or Grandma’s Last Glass Ball.

So, when I take down the tree, I reach in gingerly and try to remove an ornament without the tree realizing it and fighting back, resulting in a fragrant but scratchy tussle. So far, today, the score is Tree:10, me 5.

Not too far from where I live is a restaurant that keeps its (artificial, of course) Christmas tree up all through the year, but re-adorns it each month. After Christmas, the white lights are joined by illuminated red hearts and the ornaments are all cupids and hearts and flowers. Then in March comes the Clover and shamrocks and Irish things for St. Pat’s. Easter brings a tree full of eggs and pastel lights and silk flowers and lacy white crosses, and then for summer it’s the patriotic theme of red, white and blue ribands and little picnic basket-y things, which covers everything from Memorial Day to 4th of July to Labor Day. Comes September, the tree is lit with warm orange lights and covered in silk autumn leaves, to which they add pumpkins in October and cornucopia in November and then…here comes Christmas, again!

The owner of the restaurant says he’d rather work on the tree every month than simply take it down after Christmas. “Taking down a Christmas tree is too much like work,” he says. “what I’m doing is decorating; that’s just fun!”

I think it takes so long to take down a tree – and it feels so much like work – because, while the tree goes up with carols and family members helping, with everyone rushing to put their favorite ornaments in the best “spot,” it comes down, usually, by my hand alone…and I find myself lingering – with love and longing – over the gaudy star my brother S bought us 7 years ago, and taking particular care to wrap it in layers and layers of tissue as I remember him and how – in so many ways – he was the heart and soul of our Christmases. I find the ornament of a little mouse playing with water-colors – bought because Buster was into “painting” when he was three. The delicate, glassed standing bass meant to reflect Elder Brother’s position in the orchestra, the friar-bellringer I’d bought for a Capuchin who’d been transferred before I could give it to him – now I hang it and remember him with a prayer when I see it. The ornament I’d bought my husband, of a Bear father and his two bear cubs, ice skating, back when we used to do that, back when skating in the bitter cold of a frozen lake seemed more like fun and less “like work.”

It takes forever to bring down the tree because…well, because this Mom waxes sentimental over it all. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, it is perhaps the Last Gift of Christmas – the opportunity – after all of the hustle and hurrying and visiting and eating – to be a little quiet, to turn a 50 year-old glass ball over in your hand and wipe away a smudgey fingerprint, and consider all the years and all the love that’s been shared, and to be grateful, not sad.

J.M. Barrie* wrote, “God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.” Whether he was merely being poetic or meant to allude to Christmas doesn’t matter; he certainly nailed it. The last gift of Christmas is memory, and it lasts.

*Thanks to reader Lloyd for the correct attribution.