Whether or not the stories are "true" is not the problem. The only question is whether what I tell is my fable, my truth. (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections 3)

I do not recall a time when my parents did not put up an artificial tree for Christmas. Perhaps there was a time outside my memory when my parents exchanged the vibrant living branches of a messy fresh-cut pine tree, its aromatic needles inevitably finding its way into every nook and cranny of the room, for the practical solid green plasticity of an artificial tree. But I do not recall that moment, that decision. The Christmas ritual of the tree was always the same. My mother would direct as the huge box with the artificial tree was lifted from the basement, it’s dismembered limbs, crumbled inside with remnants of other year’s tinsel still clinging to the branches. Assembly was required as limbs were slotted into a tall pole and stiff green branches were spread out by anxious fingers ensuring no unseemly gaps.

Next came the colored lights, inevitably tangled up from last year’s careless tossing into the box. Curses abounded as a light went out, taking out the entire string of lights. Finally lights on, the ornaments came next, shining balls of fragile glass and glitter, stiff little Santas with funny little elves. The younger children, assigned to place on the tinsel always started out putting one strand of the silvery threads at a time until ultimately boredom set in and a tinsel war broke out, globs tossed over sections of the tree. The best part was sitting afterwards and staring at the tree, watching the twinkling lights dance off the shiny ornaments. What was merely a green plastic jumble in a box transformed before my eyes into something magical, something sacred, something unordinary. Nothing in the holiday season felt as important as the tree.

The magic of the tree never left me even as I left my childhood home and created my own space, my own sense of the sacred and the magical. The first year in my first apartment I decided that I would never have an artificial tree that I had to bring the real, messy evergreen stuff into my life.

So began the yearly search for the perfect tree. Bundled up against the cold Connecticut winters, I would go from tree lot to tree lot, seeing where the best prices were and how big a tree I could get for the few dollars I had. One year, I was so broke, I thought I could not afford to buy the tree. I remember walking down the street feeling glum as I watched the neighborhood transform itself with outdoor displays of light. Suddenly, I glanced at the ground and saw a $20 bill!! I grabbed it and ran off to buy a tree, somehow feeling that divinity had stepped in to keep me from being treeless in the holiday season. What a miracle!

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I remember in that first year, struggling to buy a few ornaments and strings of light. I found a little hand-blown glass reindeer and thought about collecting other hand-blown glass figures as ornaments. Throughout the years that followed, all year round, I would search for figures for the tree, cherishing each one as I discovered. Occasionally friends would gift me with an ornament as my collection grew and grew. Sometimes in the middle of the summer, I would take out my box of hand-blown glass ornaments and hold each one up to the light, marveling at the delicacy of the pieces and admiring my good taste in collecting them. It seemed to me that as long as I had my ornaments and did my yearly ritual of the tree, life was going to be ok. From year to year and place to place, I ensured that every holiday season, I went out and got a fresh-cut tree to place in wherever I considered to be home that year. Life was secure.

I bought and moved into an old cottage by Long Island Sound, excited at the prospect of the tree in my own purchased home. One summer, in the third year of living in the cottage, I went to check on my ornaments and found them missing. I was stunned and confronted my husband as to the whereabouts of this box of newspaper wrapped items. He had thought it was junk and threw them out! Oh how I cried, not only that hot summer day, but also months later when it was time to do the tree. The grief felt overwhelming to me that somehow, something so vital had been taken from my life. That holiday season, I thought I would have a breakdown because my ornaments were gone. It felt as if the ornaments were my life: each one carefully collected and obsessed over, each one a precious symbol of something deep and unconscious in me. I went out and began to buy new ornaments. But nothing ever felt the same and though I continued to put up the tree and the directions, continued to host the family Christmas dinners and "keep the holiday", the ritual felt lost with the ornaments.

In the beginning of the middle of my life, I began to question the tree and the ornaments, even as I questioned my marriage to the man who thought my ornaments were junk. Why bring a tree into the house at this time of year? Although I had been raised Catholic, I was never very Christian and as time went on, I found myself increasingly becoming polytheistic and pagan in my spiritual beliefs and practices. I began to notice my craziness about the tree, my obsession over its needed perfection as a symbol of – of something in my life. Perhaps it was a covering up of the deep imperfection I felt in my soul, that if I could have this one perfect tree no one would notice how imperfect and defective I felt. One year, I put up the tree and its ornaments and noticed that it was not perfectly straight. I attempted to straighten it and the entire tree fell on top of me. There seemed no way to fix it, no way to straighten it out and my inclination was to throw the tree out and go buy a new one, a perfect one. I realized my deep, deep insanity. Such a moment of clear realization! I saw that the ritual of the tree was actually the ritual of my own compulsion and obsession! I was paralyzed with the insight and finally knelt on the floor near the tree and prayed that this obsession about perfection would leave me. I lived with the imperfection of that tree that year and began to live with the imperfection of myself every day since. The ritual began to change.

I left my marriage and decided to discard the notion of the Christmas tree with the notion of the marriage. It was not enough for me to repeat the old rituals of childhood and find comfort in what felt to be meaningless to me. I began to read of trees and their profound spiritual and symbolic significance. I learned about the solstice and the darkest days of the year. I decided that I would create a new ritual of the tree, one that held sacred meaning for my life and honored the darkness of the time of year and the incredible significance of the birth of the light. I pondered the idea of killing a living tree versus the practicality of an artificial one and once more thought about sacrifice. Could I honor the sacrifice of the tree’s living existence in a most sacred way? I found a tree farm that year and cut down my own tree, leaving a small offering of wine and honey for the spirit of that holy tree.

I tossed out all the old lights and ornaments and began to buy new ones, ones that reflected the celestial event of the winter solstice: moons and stars and a big sun for the top of the tree. Once again I collected ornaments – ones that now held special meaning for me. Each year, the ritual of the tree grew and grew until now it became a sacred thing, a projection of all my hopes for the New Year, all my thanks for the gifts of the passing year. This year, as I place each ornament on the tree, I pour in all my intentions all my thoughts and prayers. I sit quietly now and contemplate the magnificence of my tree. On the tree among the many suns, moons, stars and gifts from family and friends, I also place:

A shell for the Goddess - for intuition and creativity

An acorn man for the God - for direction, purpose, generation

Four angels that represent the four winds that help birth the new sun in Solstice myths - a re-creation of sacred space

Pictures of my family in beautiful star-shaped frames – to honor the memories of times passed and the importance of family in my life.

A veiled slave girl, Scherazade – for my muse who cleared my 20-year writing block

A wizard – for the magical force in my life

A little house – for the sacredness of home and hearth

An owl – for wisdom and insight

A snake – for the regenerative aspects of descent and ascent

A butterfly – for transformation

A rose – for love and beauty

A mushroom – for fantasy and dreams

A strawberry – for the fruits of life

A beehive with little bees – for sweetness in life

A clown – for laughter and joy

A Santa – for all those happy childhood moments and for that essential childhood remembrance of magic

A fairy – so that the book fairies will stop hiding my books

A drum – for the beating rhythm of life

A angel dog – for my dog Star, who rescues me during many lonely moments

Handmade scrolls which contain my intentions for the coming year.

Each year, the ritual seems to grow in sacredness and meaning for me, the lights of the tree guiding me through the long, dark, lonely winter nights. The living tree releases its aromatic spirit in my home, wherever and whatever that home may be and for a time being, I know that life does hold meaning.

Life is – or has- meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle. (Jung 359)

Note: ©copyright 2001-2003, Maggie Macary, All Rights Reserved