December 15, 2017: San Tin Nifi
Ever since I was born, my cousin Connie, who lived with us for most of my life and raised me after my mother died when I was 13, has given me a Christmas ornament. I don't have all 46 (most of the bulbs have broken), but I do have a gold angel holding a guitar from my third or fourth Christmas, and the most recent artist-made wire wreath from last year, and...I could go on.
I have great memories of making Christmas decorations with my mother--stringing popcorn and cranberries one year, pinning glittery decorations on styrofoam shapes another. I still have some of the ornaments we made.
Our tree is a crazy mix of sentimental ornaments, mine and several my wife's grandmother gave her, some handmade from our childhood, carefully chosen gifts for my daughter, photos in cheesy Christmas-tree-shaped frames. I love carefully unwrapping each ornament and rediscovering it every year.
When I was a kid, we usually got a free one at the end of the season, a couple days before Christmas, from a Greek family who owned a nursery, and kept it up until mid to late January (but definitely at least until January 7, when the holiday season officially ends on St. John's day).
One year the nursery ran out of trees early, so my dad and uncle decided to go cut their own. When they got to the place they had chosen in the middle of the night a couple days before Christmas--cutting down trees in this place may or may not have been illegal--they couldn't find any that could fit into a house! So, they just cut down a giant one, cut it in half, and shoved both halves into my dad's work van. They drove home with the back doors open, my uncle holding onto the trees while my dad drove.
That year, one of our houses had a Christmas bush, and another a strangely shaped, thin, pointy tree. Whatever. It worked. It was more about the decorations than the shape of the tree anyway, and more about the scent of pine growing stronger through those 12 days of Christmas, filling the house.
I was so excited to get a real, live Christmas tree with my daughter on her first Christmas with me. We picked out a spectacular tree that was maybe a little larger than it should have been. Our tree fell off the top of our car not just once, but three times, and three different people stopped to help us get it back on. My daughter said, "That would never happen anywhere but here," and my heart swelled, moving from irritation to gratitude.
We eventually got it home and into the stand. We decorated it with several new ornaments she'd received as early Christmas gifts, as well as my old ones. And then it fell over about an hour later, breaking a bunch of our ornaments. She cried. I raged. Then I called my friend Michael, an artist who is good with his hands, because somehow I had a feeling he'd know what to do. He built us a makeshift stand that fit our tree.
I learned my lesson--scale back on the size, focus on the shape. Still, figuring out how a tree will stand up or fit into our home is not as simple as it seems. Our tree this year is leaning to one side, threatening to fall over--even after we fetched the stand Michael made us from the garage.
Still, I can't bear to switch to a fake tree even though it would be practical. We have cats, and a dog, and a little kid whose curious hands are always on everything. But going out to Wayne 'N Jean's Evergreens to pick out the tree is part of the fun, something I don't want to let go. After all these years of living here, they know my family, are genuinely happy to see us again.
But I've gotten off topic. What I wanted to write about was how, when I was a kid, I loved to sit in a dark room with the Christmas tree lights on and just stare at it. Sometimes I'd put the Christmas records on the giant record player in the living room where our tree always stood, the room we usually didn't use much, and sing along to Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Olivia Newton-John, to name a few. Sometimes I'd sing the carols I'd learned in Greek school, like San Tin Nifi, a song that compares the tree to the beauty of a bride on her wedding day. (I loved that carol best of all).
But I also loved to get up in the middle of the night, sneak down the stairs, plug in the tree, and just sit in silence.
Sitting in front of the tree in that dark, drafty living room, perched carefully on the good coach, was my first real experience with meditation, though I didn't know to call it that. My whole body and heart got quiet. My mind stopped racing, which it has been doing except when purposely stopped since the day I was born. I felt totally present in my body, in the room, in my place in the world. Years later when someone asked if I could remember the first time I actually felt a sense of Divine Union, of being one with everything else and with God, I immediately thought of sitting in front of the tree.
It's almost impossible to get time like that now, but the other night, by some miracle, everyone was asleep in their own rooms and my wife was working nights. I started to busy myself with housework, and then I remembered. I sat down even though the kitchen wasn't clean, the laundry only half sorted. I breathed in the scent of pine. I let my eyes rest on each ornament, just noticing its shape and colors, not attaching to the memories associated with it. I felt myself get still.
I have great memories of making Christmas decorations with my mother--stringing popcorn and cranberries one year, pinning glittery decorations on styrofoam shapes another. I still have some of the ornaments we made.
Our tree is a crazy mix of sentimental ornaments, mine and several my wife's grandmother gave her, some handmade from our childhood, carefully chosen gifts for my daughter, photos in cheesy Christmas-tree-shaped frames. I love carefully unwrapping each ornament and rediscovering it every year.
When I was a kid, we usually got a free one at the end of the season, a couple days before Christmas, from a Greek family who owned a nursery, and kept it up until mid to late January (but definitely at least until January 7, when the holiday season officially ends on St. John's day).
One year the nursery ran out of trees early, so my dad and uncle decided to go cut their own. When they got to the place they had chosen in the middle of the night a couple days before Christmas--cutting down trees in this place may or may not have been illegal--they couldn't find any that could fit into a house! So, they just cut down a giant one, cut it in half, and shoved both halves into my dad's work van. They drove home with the back doors open, my uncle holding onto the trees while my dad drove.
That year, one of our houses had a Christmas bush, and another a strangely shaped, thin, pointy tree. Whatever. It worked. It was more about the decorations than the shape of the tree anyway, and more about the scent of pine growing stronger through those 12 days of Christmas, filling the house.
I was so excited to get a real, live Christmas tree with my daughter on her first Christmas with me. We picked out a spectacular tree that was maybe a little larger than it should have been. Our tree fell off the top of our car not just once, but three times, and three different people stopped to help us get it back on. My daughter said, "That would never happen anywhere but here," and my heart swelled, moving from irritation to gratitude.
We eventually got it home and into the stand. We decorated it with several new ornaments she'd received as early Christmas gifts, as well as my old ones. And then it fell over about an hour later, breaking a bunch of our ornaments. She cried. I raged. Then I called my friend Michael, an artist who is good with his hands, because somehow I had a feeling he'd know what to do. He built us a makeshift stand that fit our tree.
I learned my lesson--scale back on the size, focus on the shape. Still, figuring out how a tree will stand up or fit into our home is not as simple as it seems. Our tree this year is leaning to one side, threatening to fall over--even after we fetched the stand Michael made us from the garage.
Still, I can't bear to switch to a fake tree even though it would be practical. We have cats, and a dog, and a little kid whose curious hands are always on everything. But going out to Wayne 'N Jean's Evergreens to pick out the tree is part of the fun, something I don't want to let go. After all these years of living here, they know my family, are genuinely happy to see us again.
But I've gotten off topic. What I wanted to write about was how, when I was a kid, I loved to sit in a dark room with the Christmas tree lights on and just stare at it. Sometimes I'd put the Christmas records on the giant record player in the living room where our tree always stood, the room we usually didn't use much, and sing along to Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Olivia Newton-John, to name a few. Sometimes I'd sing the carols I'd learned in Greek school, like San Tin Nifi, a song that compares the tree to the beauty of a bride on her wedding day. (I loved that carol best of all).
But I also loved to get up in the middle of the night, sneak down the stairs, plug in the tree, and just sit in silence.
Sitting in front of the tree in that dark, drafty living room, perched carefully on the good coach, was my first real experience with meditation, though I didn't know to call it that. My whole body and heart got quiet. My mind stopped racing, which it has been doing except when purposely stopped since the day I was born. I felt totally present in my body, in the room, in my place in the world. Years later when someone asked if I could remember the first time I actually felt a sense of Divine Union, of being one with everything else and with God, I immediately thought of sitting in front of the tree.
It's almost impossible to get time like that now, but the other night, by some miracle, everyone was asleep in their own rooms and my wife was working nights. I started to busy myself with housework, and then I remembered. I sat down even though the kitchen wasn't clean, the laundry only half sorted. I breathed in the scent of pine. I let my eyes rest on each ornament, just noticing its shape and colors, not attaching to the memories associated with it. I felt myself get still.
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