O Christmas Tree...

It would appear that I have (albeit, barely) escaped the dim droopy depths of "Bah humbug-ing" Christmas away this year. It would have been easy enough to do; being in Japan, far away from family, friends, and the (once) familliar. And it doesn't help that the Japanese have managed to adopt and embrace all of the Christmas consumerism and absolutely none of the meaning. Really.

After some extensive sessions with my elementary school kids, here is more or less what I have come to understand about Christmas in Japan...

They eat cake (often purchased from a Convenience store). They also eat KFC, and drink champagne. Santa lives in Finland (I'm ok with that), and Dad leaves presents in a sock; either on the bed or in the front hall-way. Snowmen are only made of two balls of snow (not three), and the trees are never real, and rarely taller than one or two feet. One Christmas in Japan is liable to make a scrooge out of Mother Theresa.

(was that bad taste?)

But really...there's no magic. And as it turns out, that's what Christmas is to me, magic. Thinking about it now, what really drove me nuts all those years about Christmas (aside from the presents...) was sitting in the living room at night, looking at the tree. The soft glow of strung lights reflecting off of the tinsel and ornaments is forever ingrained into my heart...not my memory, but my heart. I have no specific memories of looking at the tree. It's simply a comfortable and cozy calmness that is ingrained in my being.

So...this year, I have finally taken it upon myself to bring this experience back into my home...I bought a handsaw, drove deep into the hills and illegally harvested the top of of a dying cedar. In a country where Christmas tree stands are about as common as haley's commet, I was forced to create an elaborate and rushed stand-mechanism: involving a joist bracket, some screws and a spattering of rocks, both large and small. Sketchy indeed, but it worked, and I have spent the last couple days decorating my awkward little tree with whatever students happen to pass through my home.

Spindly and askew, my little green friend now inhabits a corner of my livingroom. Delicate and ill-decorated, it is a rather confusing sight to behold in the mid-day bustle. But when evening comes, I turn off the lights and there it is...the switch is hit somewhere in my heart, and the magic shoots through the universe that is my room. I'm not really sure what it is. Perhaps it is a sense of hope: Something that began as the idea that the Christmas Tree could provide me with the perfect gift, has quietly grown into the idea that somehow the warmth of its light will spread into every corner of the galaxy.

Whatever it is, I am completely at a loss as to how to describe the feeling this tiny tree imparts unto me...

...And I find it even harder to explain to my students that the older I get, the more I want to believe in Santa.