The Season of Miracles

Source: Jill LeGrand, used with permission

Merriam-Webster defines “tradition” as “a belief, practice, or custom that is passed down from generation to generation, often within a particular culture or society. It can also refer to a long-established practice or set of beliefs that are followed or observed by a group.”

Decorated trees have announced the Christmas season to the Western world since the Middle Ages when Germans began linking the Pagan practice of bringing branches and evergreens into the home during the darkest time of the year to celebrating the Christian belief in the birth of Jesus near the end of the month of December. The practice grew in geographic reach, cultural adaptations, and elaboration as centuries passed. Some Jews even adopted the tradition by relabeling the tree a “Hannukah Bush,” creating ornaments in blues, silver, and white and emphasizing the miracle of light rather than birth. Did a tree remain essential to the celebration?

In 2018, Jill LeGrand, an American woman living with her French husband and their teen daughter in Paris, decided that holiday trees were unsustainable. If they were natural, cut from living evergreens, they represented threats to maintaining needed forests, and their disposal created environmental challenges. If they were manmade, they could threaten pollution, especially when thrown out rather than recycled from year to year. She wondered: Could the Christmas tree be rethought, taking into account this new truth that had appeared like a black swan, asking her to broaden her appreciation for a miracle?

The traditions her family associated with assembling their annual tree, decorating it, enjoying its brightness and meaning throughout the dark season, and sharing it with those they loved were precious to each of them. Over the years, they had loved stringing lights on the tree, collecting and hanging ornaments rich with associations to specific experiences that they had shared. Did she have to give up the warmth, brilliance, and evolving identity that the tree traditions brought to them all as they integrated their own growth across time?

Their bonds had expanded as they each had grown. Being adults together was extraordinary, but it was different. Roles in the family had changed as their relationships to work in the outside world shifted. Childhood schooling had given way to preparation for adulthood, jobs with increasing authority to those based on individual passions, living together in the same household, long-distance relationships, reunions taking place during geographical relocations, transitions, vacations, or an occasional assignment that brought them together again. Would she need a miracle to resolve her tree conflict?

Jill took her decision seriously, considering the consequences to the environment related to the construction of obtaining, constructing, decorating, and disposing of a tree, as well as the human energies required. She considered what she liked about the processes, what concerned her about her role as a citizen of the larger human community, and how important having a tree had always been to her family. She meditated on its meaning and decided on an update to the tradition. Then she went to work.

She began by identifying and then building on a passion that the three of them shared: the written word. In their apartment, books were everywhere. Each room had shelves, cabinets, and surfaces laden with books that had brought information, inspiration, pleasures, knowledge, perspectives, support for endeavors, or beauty. Words and images—perfect!

Going from room to room, she borrowed books from their resting places. Then, in December of 2018, she constructed her first alternative Christmas tree. By the following year, she knew what she was doing and began thinking through physics and architectural principles, how to better bring pleasures to those who looked at the tree, facilitating returns of books to places from which they had come, and, especially, celebrating awareness of a new household ritual. Rituals need to remain relevant. By the third year, the joy of creation helped her commit to continuing the labor-intensive activity.

I lost track of Jill and her trees when we were isolated on opposite sides of the ocean during the pre-vaccine COVID days, our own priorities shifting focus to our own survival. This year, when Jill sent me the photo of their tree, I marveled at the expansion of meanings to her, her husband, and their daughter that it expressed.

She now knew how to track the initial location of each book so that its return was easier, thus expressing an extra measure of love to each of them through respecting individual needs and preferences regarding their beloved books. She embraced her husband’s expanded sharing as they discussed remembered books and recommended others not yet shared. She welcomed her daughter’s broader contribution to the family’s values.

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As an adult, she reflected their appreciation for varying cultures and symbolized her commitment by adding to the 2024 tree an ornament of a dancer from Tbilisi. She had brought it home following months spent on an internship in Georgia, practicing her mastery of the Russian language, underscoring her family’s respect for communicating across borders, honoring the dignity of all peoples. The replacement of the ancient tradition of an evergreen tree by one constructed from words was bringing memories of moments of growth, shared joys, and maintenance of love through creation and discourse.

As for me, I am still reeling from the absence of David’s physical presence in our lives. Nonetheless, he jumped center and forward when I announced to his spirit that I intended to write about Jill’s 2024 tree. As I wrote in my journal, he offered the title for this essay, and I would not be surprised to see some extra sparkles on our bookshelves or Menorah as the season continues.

He so loved her trees, crafted from books with all the meaning they conveyed, honoring past, present, and future. What better way to pay tribute to the miracles of love and creation could there be?

Copyright 2024. Roni Beth Tower.