Christmas Tree

[poliphilo]

I think I'll get the Christmas tree out of its box.

It doesn't seem long since I last put it away. Hell- they don't make years as long as they used to.

It looks like it's going to be twilight all day long and I feel the need for sparkly things.

In the film I watched yesterday these Polish people were going to Midnight Mass. How comforting to be a Catholic in a Catholic country! To feel the sparkle as something not merely applied but as a deep, deep thing that wraps you round.

I've been asking myself what- if anything- I'm celebrating this year. And the answer is I don't really know and I don't think it matters. Christmas is older than any religion.

The world is full of snow and wolves but we have fire.

Throw on another log. Watch the sparks fly.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear... A plastic tree! They're very rare sights in Denmark, y'know. Give me a real tree and proper candles on it, please! My christmas tree is always kept in a style which is more or less correct for a pre-1900 Danish setting; candles, paper ornaments, whatnot... It took some convincing the first time I wanted to talk some English people into sitting down and making all sorts of folded and woven ornaments out of paper, but eventually they got into it. Then, of course, came the challenge of talking them into sticking real candles on the tree...

I'm bringing a box of old-school Danish christmas-tricks to England when I go for Christmas!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We used to have real candles when I was a kid. There were little spring-loaded holders that clipped onto the tree.

I don't think our tree is plastic. It has a wire armature and the needles are made of I don't know what- some kind of fabric.

There was a time when I insisted on a real tree but- my dear- the mess. Besides which I felt guilty about the poor thing being killed for our pleasure.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

My candle-holders are "balanced", rather than clip-ons, but my granny has some nice clip-ons...

And a real tree doesn't make a mess if you treat it right! I can't stand living with an actual Christmas tree for more tha a week anyway, so for me it's fine bringing in the tree on Christmas Eve and chucking it before New Year's... Anyway; the tree will go in the wood-pile, so it will be burnt on the fire eventually, thus being far from wasted.

(Okay; heat is also for our pleasure, but I certainly don't feel guilty about that, given that it is a CO2 neutral source of heat... Oh, and I shouldn't feel guilty about chopping down a tree, even if it was merely for ornamental purposes. But then; I'm of a cruel stock; My mother and I once decided to cop the head of one of our chickens between Christmas and New Year because she thought its tail-feathers would look nice on her home-made party-hat! We did, of course, eat it as well.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A tree with real candles would be ever so pretty.

But I expect there's a law against it in Britain.

We have laws against most things these days.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

If there is a law against it, I'm going to break it!!! I'll have candles on my tree that will have been hand-cut in Grizedale Forest, and furthermore I shall have said candles hanging between pieces of paper in various shapes!

Deal with it, Britain!!!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

There was a time when I insisted on a real tree but- my dear- the mess. Besides which I felt guilty about the poor thing being killed for our pleasure.

!

My nephew chopped down a little cedar for Kate and me one year, and I said I couldn't watch him murder it.

"What's the matter?" he said, like a tough guy. "Can't stand the sight of sap?"

But it is sad to see all those dried out trees after Christmas, the ones not chosen or the ones by the curb.

This way lies madness--no more weeding, no more cut flowers--and, inevitably and much more importantly, vegetarianism.

I've been putting vegetarianism much too long. It seems more and more urgently the right thing to do.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't like cut flowers. I like pot plants and cactii.

A woman I used to travel with on the bus gave me a single lemon geranium. This was about 12 years ago. Now the house is overflowing with its descendants.