O Tannenbaum, you heavy-laden balm of tradition's art...

This year, for the first time in about 10 years, we have a tree in our living room. A green, slowly-dying 6-foot douglas fir that has been cruelly trained and chopped so as to be a perfect cone. It's pretty. And it smells good. and I like it, whatever the moral consequences are for utilizing nature in this way.

This has inspired several thoughts in my fertile head (fertile, in the sense that it seems to be apt at growing things... you'd understand if you saw a picture of me). One of them is that I could derive the equation for both the volume and the surface area of the cone inscribed by the tree. Calculus does things to you, dontcha know...

However, the more interesting thing that this festive time of year brings to mind is our purpose for having a Christmas Tree in the first place.

For my family, the tree has always been both a tradition and a storehouse of memories. We would always set up the tree, put on the record of Amy Grant's Christmas album, and string lights and hang ornaments long into the night. These memories are so strong, in fact, that during the latter half of my first semester of college, the mere sound of the song "Tennessee Christmas" was enough to bring tears to my eyes. (Well... it might have been that, or the finals and papers that were becoming overwhelming at that point. or a combination. take your pick)

The most significant part of our Christmas tree traditions is actually in the things we hang on it. Some of these ornaments are as much as 13 years older than I am, some are quite new, but most if not all represent an event or relationship that was important in our lives at some time.

Since we have more than one person in our family (sorta by definition :-P ), the ornaments we have more than fill our tree to overflowing. And each year, as I unwrap each ornament, I remember the story behind it. Sometimes, tears come with the thought of someone who has since died. Sometimes a smile comes, because of the unique nature of the person or the humor of the story behind it.

In any case, this long-standing family tradition could be likened to Scrooge's walk through "Christmas Past". Its like watching the history of your life, with all of its joy and heartbreak. I think this is important... Too often, I think I forget about how things were, about the things that have gone before, and the events that have shaped our lives. And Christmas is a time when we remember, lament, laugh, and learn.

So when you see our tree breaking under its heavy load of ornaments, know that we too are laden with the past, and remember.