The Smallest Tree

This little plastic tree, surviving year after year, stands as a symbol of hope for a future beyond our current circumstances.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

Hi, friend. Thanks so much for stopping by. Here, I write about finding the little bits hope and joy tucked away in the long journey of waiting for circumstances to change. If you like what you read, please consider subscribing.

I lift the flaps of an old cardboard box. It’s housed our Christmas decorations for the last several years, but “KITCHEN FRAGILE” is still printed in black sharpie across the top from when we moved out of our first apartment together six years ago.

From it, I pull out a smaller, repurposed Minnetonka Moccasin shoebox and set it on the carpet next to me. My daughter, wearing a crumpled reindeer headband on her head, comes over to inspect the box's contents. She takes over, pulling the top off and taking out the ornaments one by one. She brushes off the old newspaper and arranges them in a large arc on the carpet in front of us.

Each ornament fished from the dredges of the box tells a story about our life over the last six years:

An infant handprint
A miniature ceramic pitcher
A wooden stirring spoon
A dove shaped from olive wood
A cheesy Santa holding a sign that says Merry Christmass (extra ‘s’ included)

While my daughter focuses on the ornaments, I reach for a long, narrow cardboard box. Here it is, I announce. I slide out the collapsed Christmas tree, and an uneasy sadness spreads over me. 

It’s a wimpy little thing we got on a whim during our first Christmas as a married couple. We found the Christmas tree cheap in a local market here. A treasure, really. The week before Christmas, the store had set out the most dismal holiday display with dusty boxes of these tabletop artificial trees, kitschy ornaments, and a Santa hat. Surprised to find Christmas decorations in a country that didn’t formally recognize the holiday, we bought the whole display.

I weave colored lights over and under each spindly plastic branch. I kind of hate this tree, to be honest. Now, seven years later, this region of the world has caught on to selling all the trappings of the holiday season, and it’s not uncommon to find elaborate displays in grocery stores, including trees in every shape and size. But something stops me every year from looking for a newer, bigger one.

We keep saying next year. 
Next year, when we are out of here.
Next year, everything will be ok.
Next year, all the pieces will be put back together, and the holidays will be what we’ve always dreamed they would be.
Next year, we’ll get a bigger tree.

This little tree, with its storied ornament counterparts, has become an annual reminder of our wish to be anywhere but here, tangled with the reality that we are still here.

My daughter laughs and lays her hand over her six-month-old handprint immortalized in salt dough. The ornament nearly disappears under her larger three-year-old hand. 

She rises from her spot on the floor and hangs the handprint on the tree, lower branch, front and center. She hangs the rest of the ornaments in that exact spot, causing the branch to droop. When we’re finished, I plug in the garish multicolored lights that blink and fade, casting pinpricks of blues, reds, and greens into the darkening room. 

This tree is a little disappointing in its stature and shape. It isn’t Instagram-worthy. In a way, it’s become like that one odd family member to me. It embarrasses me each year, but to outsiders, I feel the need to defend it.  

This tree, in all its cheesiness, is symbolic of a messy story, one cobbled together with scruffy prayers and late-night laments. It stands as a story laced with God’s faithfulness and gracious love.

My daughter lets out an exhaled wow, now that the tree is fully decorated, and I can’t help but laugh, squinting hard to try to see what she sees. Criss-cross on the floor in front of the tree, I pull her onto my lap and rest my chin on her shoulder. 

I wish we had been given a tidier story, one including a towering tree adorned with classy white lights, a roaring hearth, and a mantle hung with heirloom stockings. A story with family close by and all the broken pieces glued back together. A story of wholeness, of full-circle moments, of answered prayers and mourning turned to dancing. 

But this tree represents something more than just the snarled mess of a dream not yet come true. This little plastic tree, surviving year after year, stands as a symbol of hope for a future beyond our current circumstances, strength to endure the unknown, and peace while we wait for the light to come.

And if I try to see with the eyes of a three-year-old, well then, I think there’s some magic here, too.

---

Here are some Christmas traditions, new and old, in our family:

Advent Candle Readings
Each Sunday, we cook a big fish dinner (for no deeper reason other than the fish market brings in their freshest fish over the weekend). We sit at the dining room table instead of our normal spots in the kitchen, bring out the nicer tableware, and light a new candle each week. This year is the first year my daughter is beginning to understand the Christmas story, so I found some free, kid-friendly Advent readings we’ve been enjoying from Muscadine Press.

Christmas Book Countdown
Over the last few years, I’ve collected winter and Christmas-themed books when I’m stateside. This year, I kept them tucked away until right before December when I pulled them out and individually wrapped each one. Each evening after dinner, my daughter chooses a book to open, and we read it together as a family.

Some of our favorite titles this year are Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, Home for Christmas by Jan Brett, and A Very Noisy Christmas by Tim Thornborough.

…and some more of our favorites

Yalda Night
On December 21st, we celebrate the Winter Solstice. In Persian culture, this is called Yalda Night. We light all the candles, eat a special dinner, and play music. It’s one of my favorite times of the winter season. We get to rejoice that, while it is the longest night of the year, starting the next morning, more and more light will come. Light always wins over darkness.

The 3 PM Pause
After coming across

Carmen Luisa

’s piece: Every Day at 3 PM?, I’ve started pausing at the same time each day where I just take a moment to look around, to notice, and to appreciate whatever is happening at that time. I chose 3 PM, too, because, at our house, it is such a liminal space. 3 PM is a post-nap, not quite dinner, purgatory time of day. Always a little different and completely ordinary.

But in the middle of all the swirling busyness of the holidays and just life in general, pausing at the same time each day is such a simple practice that urges me to notice, rest, and reflect before it quickly passes by.

Some other things we do…
We eat cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. I put them together the night before and pop ‘em in the oven while we open stockings. // Sometime in December, I bake Norwegian almond cake as a delicious nod to my side of the family. // Aside from stockings, we don’t really exchange gifts (my daughter opens one or two big ticket items on Christmas Day, but that’s really it from us). Instead, for the past couple of years, we’ve planned a staycation for one night at a little-fancier-than-we-normally-stay-at hotel a few days after Christmas. // And we squeeze in time for our annual re-watches of It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, and Home Alone 2 (the best in the franchise, IMO).