I just went to the dentist for my six-month checkup. Monica likes to ask me open-ended questions whenever she cleans my teeth which is probably the most awkward thing in the world. I’d much prefer a blink once for Yes, blink twice for No routine. In my mind, I sound like a wounded whale when I try to answer her while she’s poking around with a tarter scraper inside of my mouth.
So this time, I decided to try to avoid – or at least delay – the bi-annual awkwardness by preempting Monica with a question of my own, just as she was getting started.
“Are your kids ready for Christmas?” I asked and closed my eyes, pleased with myself for buying a minute or two of non-awkward whale response time.
Monica said that they were but told me that she was struggling with her daughter, Rose.
She wanted everything she saw on TV. Monica tried explaining that Rose had a lot of toys already, much more than other, less fortunate kids, but the little girl wasn’t buying it. She saw an ad for Barbie’s dream house and wanted it. She saw a commercial for the new game Pie Face and wanted it. If it was on TV, she wanted it! Rose’s Christmas list was becoming never-ending.
And her mom decided to do something about it.
So she decided to drive her daughter to the mall to pick an angel to adopt from the angel tree. Each angel on the tree lists a child’s first name, age, gender, and sizes. It’s a program sponsored by the Salvation Army to help less fortunate kids get the clothes that they need for Christmas.
When Rose saw the tree and her mom explained what they were doing, the little girl stared at it for a long time. Monica told me how proud she was, watching her daughter start to understand that each angel on the tree represented a little boy or girl that would soon have Christmas presents.
Then her daughter walked up to her mom and said, “How can I get my name on that tree?”
We laughed and I mumbled some nonsensical comment that sounded like my whale had now become beached and Monica agreed with me and started polishing my teeth. I wondered if dental hygienist training included lessons in speech pathology so they could understand their patients.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation. This morning, I woke up before the boys who would soon be ravaging through the many presents under the Christmas tree and I started to think about the reality of how throughout the year, but especially on Christmas, we all have our own “trees” that we want to put our names on. They may come in many forms, but we all have them.
There’s the tree that many people have who are still waiting to find the right person to spend the rest of their lives with before they can be happy.
There’s the tree of having a better home to raise a family in, one with a bigger porch or a fenced-in yard or something else that we say we need to be happy.
There’s the tree of seeing a dream come true, whether it’s becoming a full-time writer, or a stay-at-home mommy, or anything in between. A tree we focus on too much sometimes that it keeps us from being happy in the moment.
There’s the tree of wanting a newer car, or better clothes, or a less stressful job, or more money, or… the kinds of trees we all desperately yearn for is like Rose’s Christmas list. Endless.
What we fail to realize is that just like real trees, every tree in our lives has a different season.
The new home you just had to have isn’t as perfect as you thought it would be once you move in. The dream job you wanted eventually becomes not-so-dreamy. What once shined brightly becomes old and dull after a while. The thing we had to have in order to be happy gets replaced by another tree that will really make us happy if we can just put our name on it and call it ours.
Only it doesn’t. Not, really.
Understand that the trees in our lives are only temporary. They don’t last forever.
This Christmas, try to focus on the things that really matter. Spend time with people that you love. Pay attention to the look on your kid’s face when they open their presents. Enjoy today, no matter what you may be going through. Know that struggles come and go and waiting until everything in your life is perfect to be happy is time wasted.
And know that there’s only one tree that we should care about having our names pinned to, the one tree that won’t fade away. The one whose birth we celebrate today.
Merry Christmas.