Tag: christmas tree

Posted on

Deck the Halls With Heads of Holly

At long last, Holly Hobbie smiles at us from the Christmas tree.

And from slightly lower down, so does her long-lasting head.

This may take a little explanation.

Long ago, like many a little girl, my wife Heather had a Holly Hobbie Christmas ornament, the big-bonneted pioneer girl of many a greeting card. This Holly was designed to hang from a tree branch with arms open wide, gazing benignly at passers-by.

It was much loved. And like many much-loved things, she got broken a bit too soon. One Christmas, the family unpacked its ornaments to find that 90% of Holly Hobbie was missing – everything except her well-known head.

With normal people, this would be the end.

My wife and her siblings are not normal people.

Holly Hobbie endured. In fact, Placing The Head of Holly Hobbie became a cherished Christmas tradition. With many giggles, The Head would come to rest on a suitably flat bit of pine, looking as though orcs had visited the American prairie and left behind a sign of their passage.

When Heather married me, The Head came with her. And from that day forward, our Christmas tree has been a Head above the rest.

Weird? Maybe. But in a time of year where we plant trees indoors and eat food out of our socks, I don’t think the rest of us are in any place to talk. That’s what traditions are: weird things you don’t do at any other time. I mean, ‘tis the season for a reindeer with an LED nose, for Pete’s sake.

But even so, Heather kept a watch. And with the rise of the internet – and just as importantly, the rise of 1980s nostalgia – her dream finally came true. She found a source, made the contact, cheered as the mail arrived.

Holly Hobbie had come home!

Triumphantly, Heather placed the full-bodied Holly in the tree. Just a step or two away from The Head of the old one, gazing up at her new sister.

After a moment, we both laughed.

“Kind of looks like she’s been left there as a warning to the newcomer, doesn’t it?” I said, to more helpless giggles.

A Christmas tradition would continue. Stronger and weirder than ever.

And with it grew just a bit of joy.

Joy’s kind of weird itself. It hides in odd places, lurks around strange corners. You can try to cultivate it for weeks with ribbons and music and Hallmark movies without success, and then, bang! Up it pops without warning.

Sometimes it’s the sudden connection that a tradition makes between past and present, briefly restoring something thought lost.

Sometimes it’s the out-of-place detail that makes us stop, think and wonder at the world around us, a star burning where it has no reason to be.

Frequently there is no obvious explanation. It pounces like a tiger, ambushing us on a deeper level than simple happiness. It’s a sudden rightness, or an excitement that won’t be held back, or a warmth that colors everything nearby.

It’s an inspiration. And like many inspiring things, you can’t really force it – but you can leave yourself open to it so that you don’t miss it when it comes.

Eyes open. Heart open. Seeing and experiencing and reaching to those nearby.

It might mean changing the usual or daring to be thought strange. That’s a risk. But it’s one worth taking to break beyond the expected and really live.

So be alert. Keep your head up.

Hey … it works for Holly Hobbie.  

Posted on

By the Light’s Early Dawn

Ok. I’m officially one of Those People.

No, not a Raiders fan. (I do have my standards, you know.)

No, I haven’t started changing lanes without a turn signal.

And no, I haven’t been forgetting to take my mask off when I’m alone in the car. Not for more than one or two blocks, anyway.

This is something far more serious.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Scott Rochat … and I am an Early Christmas Decorator.  

(Ow! If you’re going to throw cranberry sauce at me, take it out of the can first, OK?)

To be fair, this goes against a LOT of my early training. From childhood on, family and employers made it clear that Thanksgiving was the demarcation line that must not be crossed. Even now, my folks deck the halls beautifully, but not until well into December.

So how did we come to violate the Turkey Truce?

I’d love to blame Missy for this, but for once, she’s innocent. Relatively so, anyway. If you’ve met her in this space before, you know that our ward has no fear of blaring out some holiday tunes in the middle of June if the mood strikes her. This year was no exception – but the Veterans Day tree in the window was not her fault.

That started with my wife Heather.

Well, in all honesty, it started with 2021. And more than a bit of 2020 as well.

I think we can all agree that these last two years have been  … what’s the word? Stressful? Frustrating? Flaming dumpsters full of near-apocalyptic wretchedness? (I know, that’s more than one word. Go with me here.) Certainly there have been some amazing moments – any time period where Grumpy Bernie turns into a meme can’t be all bad – but  for the most part, it’s been a slog. Through a swamp. That’s on fire. And filled with bear traps.

Within Chez Rochat itself, this is the year we lost our oldest pet. And our youngest pet. We racked up way too many medical emergencies, even by Heather’s standards. Not to mention … but no, I won’t mention. You’ve got your own tales of family exhaustion and you probably don’t need to be burdened down by mine.

Suffice it to say, there’s been a lot of darkness. And darkness needs light.

So we kindled some.

Two weeks early for the calendar. But just in time for us.

And I know we’ve got company.

It’s a human reflex. Almost every winter holiday I can think of involves kindling lights.  It’s an act that pushes back against the growing night, creating beauty out of shadow. When reflected by snow, the light grows still stronger, reaching out to embrace all who see it.

In a cold time, it’s a promise that we’re still here. That we can still hope.  

That’s no small thing.

Joy, love, peace, hope – those aren’t qualities for just one time of year, to be packed up in a cardboard box when reality returns. They’re survival traits. We pick a time to make them more visible so they’re not forgotten, but they always belong. And in times like this, they’re more essential than ever.

So if this year, giving thanks is mixed with your holiday cheer of choice, I won’t blame you. Quite the opposite.

Let there be lights. And trees. And hearts with the strength and desire to raise spirits. Whatever you do, however you do it … if you’re helping hold back the dark this year, you’re family.

Yes, even the Raiders fans.

Posted on

Leaping Into the Season

Written Dec. 7, 2019

With one excited leap, Big Blake fulfilled his holiday duty of protecting us from plastic pines.

CRASH!!!

To be fair, it wasn’t intentional. Our 85-pound English Labrador is a dog of mighty power, mighty enthusiasm and mighty little brain. Like all good dogs, he wants to guard his family. And like all big dogs, he believes that he’s the size of a terrier.

And so, when Blake watched out the front window and saw a human coming near his house, his protective instincts kicked in while his spatial awareness dropped to zero. Especially his awareness of the freshly decorated Christmas tree within millimeters of him as he turned on a dime – OK, on a quarter – and charged for the front door.

Did I mention CRASH!!!? Yeah, I thought I did.

This year marked a new holiday record for Blake. We had bought and set up the new tree (pre-lit, to spare the family’s spinal columns) less than 24 hours before. It had had a peaceful and beautiful Silent Night to start the season before its ignominious toppling to the theme of Oy To The World, The Dog Has Come.

It had been a while, but we remembered the routine. Lift everything back into place. Check for damaged ornaments (few). Untangle branches and ornaments that had gotten twisted together (many). And then step back and check the picture.

The picture, it turned out, was hung a little crookedly. Like an eager child the day after Thanksgiving, our new tree had developed a Christmas list – it was leaning just a bit to one side.

Somewhere, somehow, Blake had put a bend in the pole. Not a huge one. Not an obvious one (except to my highly detail-aware wife, Heather). The tree’s beauty was still there, but if you knew where to look, you could see that it had been through an impact.

On reflection, that’s not a bad way to see many of us at this time of year.

Every year, we’re reminded that this is a season of joy. It’s in the songs and readings, the lights and decorations, the wishes that we pass along to each other. “Merry Christmas!” “Happy Holidays!” “Have a great New Year!”

And for a number of us, the joy feels muted. It lands softly, or not at all.

It might be a season of ghosts, where memories of Christmas Past make Christmas Present a little harder to bear.

It might be a struggling time, or an anxious one, or a darkness that crept in with the cold and the snow.

It might even be something that has no reason at all, just a gray place that needs to be acknowledged for a while in silence and healing.

And that’s OK.

This shouldn’t be a time of forced gaeity. It’s not about hitting someone over the head with a jingle-bell wreath and then blasting carols at them 24 hours a day, like a Christmas edition of “A Clockwork Orange.” This is a time for remembering that we’re part of a larger family; one with hopes, and needs, and yes, pain that needs to be seen and acknowledged. To be reached out to in love, not bulldozed or whitewashed.

And as we reach out to each other, as we meet each other where we are … sooner or later, we find the joy never really went away. It felt like it. It seemed a certainty that it could never return. But in time, in that gentle, quiet reaching  out, we find the joy reborn. Dented. Marked. Leaning to one side like an injured Christmas tree. But beautiful all the same.

It takes patience. But it’s one of the best gifts anyone can give.

May all of you find your joy this season, whether bright and exuberant or dented but enduring. May we welcome each other as we are and plant the seeds of what can be.

And if that welcome suddenly includes the impact of a loving but clumsy English Labrador, I am so, so sorry.

Posted on

Angels Askew

As I looked at our freshly liberated Christmas tree in its brilliant, slightly scrunched glory, I couldn’t help remembering the long-familiar tale.

“And Lo, the angel of the Lord did look down from the heavens and said unto them … ‘Ouch! Should I not be two inches to the right?’”

Or maybe that’s just us.

You see, in most respects, our tree is pretty traditional. There are the thousand-and-one colored lights on every branch, carefully obscuring the burned-out strands that were built into the tree itself. There’s the 40 years of ornaments that invade every square inch, looking like the Ghost of Christmas Past got mugged in a yard sale. The cute and the memorable merge with the odd and bizarre (“Is that Holly Hobbie’s head?”), all of it arranged so that the wagging tail of Big Blake, the World’s Clumsiest Dog can’t hit anything fragile.

And presiding over all of it, bestowing its graceful presence on everything below, is our tree-topper angel—teetering dangerously forward as though she were about to leap from her place of heavenly glory and into a swimming pool far below. You know, the one at the first motel, where the angels did stay?

The reason for this perilous perch? Well, our home used to belong to Heather’s grandparents, and her English grandmother wanted one that had a Tudor “look.” So there’s a big, beautiful bay window in the front room, just perfect for framing a Christmas tree – and behind it, a series of thick brown beams projecting from the ceiling, one of them hanging above the exact center of the window.

So every year, we have to choose. We can either shift the tree off-center so that it can extend to its full glorious height, while triggering the OCD of every resident and passing driver. Or we can put the tree in its natural spot, where the angel of the Lord is squeezed into submission by a burst of misplaced architectural enthusiasm.

This year, we squeezed. In an odd way, it seemed fitting.

In the musical “1776,” Ben Franklin talked about how revolutions are brought into the world “half improvised and half compromised.” To my mind, it’s even truer of the Christmas season. Beneath the wonder and beauty – and sometimes not far beneath – is a constant tap dance of just making things work. We cover for lost or damaged decorations. We negotiate over whose turn it is to visit for dinner this year. We struggle to find enough hours in the day, dollars in the budget, or sanity in the mind to make everything work. Heck, even the original Christmas story featured a feed box that was pressed into services as a baby bed.

And somehow, we do make it work. Not because it’s picture-perfect. But because it’s ours, brought forth in love and desperation, cobbled together from what we have.

That’s Christmas. That’s family. That’s life.

And despite all the choices and compromises – or maybe even because of them – it often still becomes something wonderful. A bit strange, maybe. But wonderful all the same.

There’s an odd kind of peace in that. A chance to truly “be not afraid” and see things from a more forgiving perspective.

In fact, we may be right on the beam.