I really really hate spending money on a Christmas tree that gets burned on January 2nd. I hate budgeting that much money when I could be using it to buy something useful...like books or something for the homeschool.....or even a chub of ground beef (have you seen the price of ground beef lately?) In a fit, I suggested buying an artificial tree. Mark responded that he didn't want to have to stuff it up in the attic each year, besides, wasn't I the one that wanted a cut tree each year? A few weeks later, he saw my logic and actually looked at artificial trees at the store, but of course I had changed my mind. What the heck is the point of Christmas if everything, including the tree, was plastic???
And then I heard a voice...and those who know This Voice know what I'm talking about. That still, small voice? Yep. I know my path for salvaging my Christmas. I'm taking my leap of faith.
Today, we went to pick up a tree. There is this cute little place near our home called Noble Farm. Nothing is near our house, so we were happy to contact the owner and support the local economy. The man who grows the trees loves his trees and has been growing them for decades, based on the size of a few of them (taller than his two story house)! Unfortunately, a blight came through this year and some of the trees are too diseased to sell. We found a tree that would fit our living room, but it had several blighty branches. He looked so sad when he touched the branch and said that he was going to have to burn all the diseased trees. He is also getting old and is thinking about being done with his trees in a year or two. We then went on to look at some beautiful, perfect trees up on the hill, but I just couldn't shake a feeling. It seemed a shame that this tree grew for so many years to become a beautiful tree, just to get a blight and get burned and never see a happy child's face or a string of colored lights.
Maybe I've read too many fairy tales.
As we walked back to the house, the man told us about his dog and how she had been a rescue dog. She was a little jumpy and nervous, but even with these flaws, she was still a good dog. We have a jumpy rescue dog too and he is darn good at chasing off the coyotes. In fact, some people I know have been Rescued and are still jumpy. We came back to the diseased tree and I realized that I wanted that tree and I wanted it badly. "This tree? With the brown branches? I guess you can cut them off and it will still be okay..." Nope. I wanted it as it was. Because that tree was the perfect symbol of Christmas. Aren't we all flawed? Don't we all carry evidence of a fallen world? And without that, we wouldn't need Christmas or a little baby born in a manger. As Mark went to bring the car closer, my mouth ran with this message that could only be from Someone else. Because I'm a Scrooge and a Grinch, not a shining star leading the way to Bethlehem.
