Our Christmas tree is big! Like 12 feet, 200 pounds big! I enjoy setting it up each year, but it takes me about 3 days to finish. Well, on Thursday when placing an ornament I felt the tree fall away from me and hit the wall. What had I done?! I barely touched it! I grabbed the tree by the trunk and looked down noticing the base was bent to a 35 degree angle. I felt like a deflating balloon, you know, the kind with the slow, high-pitched screeching sound?
I just sat there, all Christmas spirit gone. How could we have Christmas without a tree? Where would the gifts go?, no Christmas pickle? (that's a story for another time). Just then, Joel returned home from work and said, "we can fix this!"
He rigged some ropes from the bridge above the living room and attached them to the tree, thus allowing us to suspend the tree horizontally and cut off the bent part of the trunk
After cutting off about a foot of the trunk we were able to use new pipe to support the tree in a more vertical position.
Most of my previous work was lost, the garland had to be removed, and all the ornaments taken off to protect them from destruction. Since Thursday I have had plenty of time to reflect and ponder on this episode, and what it means. This is what I have discovered, Christmas is not about trees, lights, decorations, the perfect gift, snow, or holiday treats. Christmas is about Christ! All of those other things are nice, in fact they're great! But they come because Christ came, He is our Savior, He came to save us all from a fallen and broken world. I know this with all of my being but I am grateful to be reminded by a fallen and broken tree!
Merry Christmas!
