That Time I Kept My Christmas Tree Up For A Year

The year was 1998.

My baby, Clark, was 2 years old. After a difficult pregnancy, an extremely premature delivery, and 7 weeks in the hospital...he was thriving. No sign of the 3 lb 2 oz boy I'd given birth to just two years before.

And then...a lump in his little tummy. There was surgery, and the dreaded word: cancer. And there was chemo...and lots and lots of doctor's appointments.

And then my Mom died.

I don't even know how I made it through that year. Honestly, without the constant presence of God, and the family and friends He used to hold us up, I don't know where we'd be.

You have to know that the very last thing I wanted to do in 1998 was to put up a Christmas tree. In fact, I would've been fine if we had just scrapped the whole thing...but KIDS.

And I love Christmas, I do. I love what it represents: God sending His only Son to be born of a virgin. God sending His Son to be born for you and me. Born to die.

I don't love that it has turned into a huuuuuge commercial holiday, but I do love a lot of the other stuff that goes along with Christmas. I love the decorations. I looooove the lights. I do not love shopping for presents because I want to give each person something special, and I don't always know what that is...but I DO love giving gifts. Love.it.

I love the music of Christmas. I could go to a Christmas play or musical or choir special every day of the month.

And honestly, what about the FOOD at Christmastime?

I also love the spirit of generosity that seems to be more present during the Christmas season. People give more to others...they seem more aware of others...they reach out to family and friends.

So, I put up a Christmas tree in 1998. I cried as I put it up BY MYSELF because my rat-fink children don't love all the decorations like I do (well, disclaimer: Holly loves it now, because she's older and married. And I"m guessing Logan will love them more this year, as he helps Morgan decorate their home for their first Christmas together). It's not that my kids didn't love the decorations as much as they didn't see the necessity of them.

I cried as I got out the decorations...we try to get one from the places that we travel, and so each ornament has a memory attached with it. I had ended up with a few of my Mom's ornaments, and that brought on a whole 'nother set of emotions when I pulled them out of the box.

But then it was done and it looked beautiful and there it stayed...until the first part of January. I just couldn't bring myself to take it down. I did not think I could handle packing everything up and putting it in the attic. Everything that year seemed so hard...but it was also so good. We had our baby boy and his treatments were over...and all of his cancer was gone. He had loved the Christmas tree this year. At night, when the room was dark, he would stare at the lights on the tree as I rocked him. I was not ready to take that experience away from him.

My friend, Paula, read a magazine article about a lady who kept her tree up year-round, and just changed out the decorations according to the seasons/holidays. That really perked me up, because I thought, "I can do that!"

I decided to make my January tree all about snow and ice, and I bought a lot of white and silver ornaments I found on sale during that first week of January. The kids and I cut snowflakes out of paper and those went on the January tree. February was all about pink and red, and hearts. March and April were spring colors. I used Easter eggs and fishing line to hang them all over the tree. In May, I went all patriotic with red, white and blue and little flags ALL over the tree. I kept it that way until the first day of August, when I changed it to back-to-school stuff. Apples and small chalkboards and pencils all tied on the tree. The kids loved it when they came home from school and the decorations were changed out. September all the way thru the first part of November was fall colors, punkins and gourds. I went from sunflowers to leaves to pine-cones, as the weather got cooler.

And then it was Christmas again.

And it had been a year.

And this time, at the first part of January...I packed up the tree, and put it up in the attic. My living room felt empty, but it felt open...fresh. If that makes any sense.

That time I kept my Christmas tree up for a year...it was a conversation starter, that's for sure. In January, I would hear my friends say how they had lugged their tree up to the attic...or how some of them had taken their real tree down on the day after Christmas. I would just smile and say, "I'm leaving my tree up all year." And people looked at me funny, but people always look at me funny. But as time went on, people couldn't believe it. They would ask me, "do you still have your tree up?" And I would tell them I did, and what was on it at the time.

Everyone grieves differently, but this opened a lot of doors for me to talk to others about the faithfulness of God during a very dark time in our family. People who didn't know us well, would ask about the tree, and I was able to talk about what God had done in our lives with our baby, Clark, and also how He had been our solid rock and anchor during the unexpected death of my Mom.

God doesn't waste an experience. If it happened to you, He brought to you. Or He allowed it to come to you.

Tell your story.

"These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children." Deuteronomy 6:6-7