Christmas trees & other Advent traditions

I'm waiting again for my daughter to finish her dance course, so I have 15 precious minutes to write. Life is very busy this fall quarter, so my blogs pretty much have to be done in 10-15 minutes. This may be good, as it forces going right to business without too much reflection.

We purchased a Christmas tree last Saturday. After English Club then lunch, we got to IKEA. However, we discovered that IKEA had already sold out their whole stock that morning. The next stock would arrive Monday morning. Not having time to go back, we ended up going to Bricomarche next to it. I love the big stores out in the suburbs.

After some discussion, we ended up purchasing an artificial tree. The price was about the same as a normally priced tree in the Paris area (not including the IKEA super discounted ones). My wife & I had some discussion over this, as she grew up with "real" trees (which I call "murdered" trees), while I grew up with artificial trees. For her, her memory of Christmas has been highly associated with a live (or recently live) tree.

I've had some reflection already about the "morality" of live vs. artificial trees. Of course, I'm not going to adamently push for artificial ones, although I this year out of an economic & time interest. Practically, I like being able to put up a tree whenever I want to without having to go shopping for one every year. Economically, it's cheaper to have the same articial tree, as we don't need to dispense the time, gas, and money for a live tree. Even with the 2 euros trees at IKEA, you still have to make 2 round trips to get them, so the gas expense adds up over the years.

Ecologically, I don't think that the Christmas tree sales help the planet. They might help economically in terms of the people that their sales employ.

But the bottom line, no matter what type of tree that one has, is that Christmas shouldn't be so indelibly linked to traditions like trees, snow, sleighs, Santa Claus, mistletoe, holly, egg nog, mulled wine, poinsettias, foie gras, smoked salmon, etc. Certainly, these can be nice and beautiful things to enjoy.

I struggled with this my first Christmas in France in 1988. I was away from "home" and all the traditions that I had grown used to. I remember walking around the streets of Albertville feeling very sad. I intentionally decided to reach out to the classmates and others who had reached out to me the previous months. I ended up getting invited to Morges, Switzerland and spent the holidays with Claude & Judith, a sweet couple about the age of my parents.

During my 2 years in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa, I experienced some tropical Christmases in shorts. I learned of my enjoyment of being around children those 2 Christmases. That's part of the fun nowadays of having my 3 children around to celebrate this Advent with. Their excitement helps me get excited about it.

Over the years, I've celebrated Christmas day in Switzerland; Albertville & Paris (France); Vienna (Austria); Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire; South Dakota, Tennessee, Michigan, New Jersey & Colorado. All very interesting.

Now it's time to get my daughter.

The bottom line is that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, God become man. As for the externals, it's fun to discover different ways to celebrate this. More to come in future blogs.