The Christmas Tree

#ChristmasTree #Christmas #Savior

Author: Jiming Lindal

A Christian who likes to write

“Will we decorate the Christmas tree this year, or will Lin do it?” I asked my husband. Lin is our child, who took delight in decorating the Christmas trees in years past.

This year has been challenging for all of us.

In January, wildfires broke out in Los Angeles, affecting the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. We were mandatorily evacuated and stayed at a downtown hotel for nine days until the evacuation order was lifted and power was restored.

Then our dog of eleven and a half years, Fluffy, frequently injured his back early this year. At the end of August, his health deteriorated further after he developed a rare infection in his digestive system. He had stopped eating, and the doctor had to insert a feeding tube. After the tube fell off by itself, he has been eating on and off, losing weight continuously. Now he is in palliative care.

All of this has been taking a toll on us, weighing us down mentally, emotionally, and physically. Are we going to celebrate Christmas? Are we going to have the Christmas tree and decorate it?

My first experience with a Christmas tree was when I was about three or four years old. My parents were persecuted and forced into a mine during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I remember my father wrote the lyrics of Away in a Manger on the back of the door. And my mother, who was not a Christian then, brought home small branches of evergreen and laid the stretched white cotton balls on them. No ornaments. It was my Christmas tree; it was our Christmas tree.

The Christmas "tree" brought us joy and hope in an oppressive time, even though it was just a few branches decorated with made-up snow.

Recently, I found a couple of photos of my mother and me sitting by a decorated Christmas tree after we had just moved to a high-rise apartment in Shanghai.

I was about fourteen years old in the late 80’s (when Deng’s “Open Door” policy was in full swing and Christmas celebrations were allowed again in China). This time, it was a short plastic tree, not branches, but a tree, about four feet tall. We had ornaments. Every Christmas Eve, after the candlelight service at our home church (Shanghai Community Church on Heng Shan Road), my uncles would come to our apartment and sing Hallelujah. There was music, a tree, and ornaments, quite a Christmas!

I do not remember having a Christmas tree during my graduate school in Buffalo, New York, nor during my first job in Birmingham, Alabama, and certainly not when I first moved to Glendale to start my new job at a Marketing Research Consulting firm in Los Angeles, California. The Christmas tree was absent, but was God absent that time, too? I did not know. I knew I led a life God was not pleased with, though I attended church and even sang in the choir.

After I bought the condo in Glendale, my mother dragged a plastic Christmas tree from the street, which some family had discarded. We erected it during Christmas, and that tree accompanied us to our house in La Canada after my husband and I were married and had our child.

After spending several years with that tree, we decided to invest in a new one. We bought a taller, fuller, authentic-looking, and eye-pleasing tree from Balsam Hill. We hung the ornaments, and my mother-in-law gifted us many she had collected over the years. Our tree looked beautifully adorned and full of life. We circled the colored lights from top to bottom and found a lighted star to put on top. The tree breathed on its own. How happy we were!

Our child has fully embraced the tradition and has been decorating the tree for a few years now.

The Christmas tree has accompanied my path in life: a tradition passed down to me through my parents, a tradition I did not keep for part of my life, a tradition we restored, and a tradition we passed down to our child. It walked its own journey.

So, for this Christmas, are we decorating the tree? It seems that it will be a quiet Christmas. We took the tree out of our basement, where we had stored it, and erected it in our family room. Our child brought out the ornaments and explained what was in each box. What are we going to do from here? We are not sure.

However we celebrate Christmas, it will be unique for every family. Formality brings familiarity and complex emotions, but let us not forget the essence. As a Christian, I believe in the truth that Christmas is about our savior coming to Earth, and with that, He brought us peace, love, joy, and hope. Even if we are not decorating our Christmas tree, we can still celebrate Christmas by saying a little prayer – “Thank you, Jesus, for coming to Earth.”

Merry Christmas!