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.

Tree Cheers

Tree Cheers

 

Missy loves to help. We love to let her. But we’ve learned she can get a bit – er, enthusiastic.

Give her a cloth and spray, and she will gladly clean a mirror. And clean it, and clean it, and clean it, until the glass retains a 50 percent Windex content.

Leave her in the vicinity of her sneakers and she will lace them up. Elaborately. To the point where two laces emerge from the same hole in a wonderful Gordian knot after a long, winding trip up the shoe … which, in turn, may be jammed firmly on the wrong foot.

All of which explains why our Christmas tree is a bit crowded this year.

I had been out on my usual Tuesday night jaunt, covering the Longmont City Council for the paper. (Before you groan, remember that city government is a lot like watching a soap opera: initial confusion followed by almost addictive interest once you learn the characters and storylines.) With a quiet night ahead, my wife Heather decided it was a good time to put up ornaments – well, minus one that I dropped on the basement floor earlier and that we didn’t really need anyway, right?

Missy, our developmentally disabled ward, took to it with a will. And with a LOT of ornaments. Three, four, even five ornaments could be found hanging from a single branch. Candy canes collided with landscapes as teddy bears jostled with Christmas mice; the tree-topper angel, safely above the fray, had to be wondering if her perch was being turned into a high-rise.

“She was having fun,” Heather said later with a smile. “As long as she was enjoying herself and the branch wasn’t going to break, I thought ‘Go ahead.’”

Not a bad rule of thumb. And for more than just trees.

At this time of year, a lot of people write about “Simplifying Christmas.” I’ve done it a couple of times myself. It’s an easy target, after all, with the peace and joy at the heart of the season often crowded out by crowded parking lots, frantic Santa-themed ads and the musical Chinese water torture session otherwise known as “The Little Drummer Boy.” A space to step back and reflect seems welcome, even essential.

So far, so good.

But at the same time,I don’t want to build the monastery walls, either.

I like Christmas lights, even when they reach levels of glorious excess. (Maybe especially then; they make better stories.) I like wall-to-wall holiday music, both sacred and secular. I have friends who are energized rather than stressed when they “deck the malls” to hunt out presents for family, moving down the list like Peyton Manning driving for the end zone.

It’s noisy. It’s chaotic. And – forgive me, Linus – for some of us, it’s darned fun.

And that’s part of the holiday, too.

It’s no sin to enjoy the time of year. After all, this is a time of transformation: lights rending darkness; snow making familiar landscapes into something new; calls going out to not just exist, but to look neighbor-to-neighbor and live. Anyone who can stand unmoved by all of that is a stolid soul, indeed.

But remember the Missy Rule. Are you enjoying yourself? And is the branch breaking?

Both sides are important. When actions are done out of grudging obligation rather than honest delight, it can turn even the most joyful season into a miserable slog. When the buzz and activity no longer enhances the important things, but crowds them out, then it’s time to hold off and listen for cracking bark.

But if the stress isn’t building to dangerous levels, if it’s still a joy and not a chore, if peace and family and so many other good things are still in sight and close at hand – well, have at it. Tear into the season like a 3-year-old into wrapping paper and don’t look back.

Do look up, though.

After all, that Christmas mouse above you can only hold on for so long.