“O Christmas Tree” and Me

Merchants are not the only ones who begin decorating in October. When I visited the Biltmore House and Estate in Asheville, North Carolina on October 19, Christmas trees had been decorated and set in nearly every public room of the 250 room mansion built in 1895.

That’s right. 1895.

Traditions around the evergreen tree and branches date back centuries to the Egyptians but became popular during the reign of England’s Queen Victoria who married Prince Albert from Germany. In the 1500s, Germany began bringing evergreen trees into homes at Christmas (“O Tannenbaum”) and in the 1800s, the decorated tree tradition made its way across the ocean to America.

Here’s a link to the website where you can read about the the Biltmore Banquet Hall Tree, a Christmas tradition. This year’s massive tree was not in place during my visit.

Here’s what the banquet hall looked like before workers set up the Christmas tree.

These last days before Christmas . . .

Every year at Christmas, the tree holds lots of memories. Special ornaments bring reminders of those who gave me many of these tiny treasures, and it’s a pleasure to handle them and remember those people.

It’s the song, however, that plays in my head, “O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, how lovely are thy branches.”

I don’t get much further than the first few lines before my eyes fill with tears and my nose runs.

Not the Best Christmas Pageant, but the Last Christmas Pageant for my 7-year-old sister, Renée, who died four days after that worst Christmas ever for my family and me.

But then I think about that singular Christmas program in elementary school and smile.

Renée rocked it. “O Christmas Tree,” swaying and singing with so much pure joy, she performed as if she was the spotlighted singer.

People couldn’t help but watch her. As I looked around, my mom and I weren’t the only ones smiling back at her.

Her hair shone like a backlit halo––thin, blonde and curly like a toddler’s.

Renée was a head taller than everyone in her kindergarten class because she had been held back a year. Too many absences to promote.

Goodness, how I wish I had a picture of her that night. Imagine a video!

But then I think, cameras cannot do justice to real life. The best picture ever cannot replace the people we love.

The evergreen trees represent life and hope.

Bokeh in the background, that soft pleasing out of focus effect, shows how the light that is Jesus shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. [1]

The Way We Were

I took a screenshot of a quote this week. The words keep coming back to me, pertinent in several conversations.

We all resist change. And yet even if we admit change is inevitable, we are afraid for things to change.

The world is ever-changing

And you are changing, too.

And with change comes forward movement

That declares:

You have not missed out on what was meant for you.

MHN––Morgan Harper Nichols

Way back when my husband and I lived in Charlotte, NC for four years, we never got to visit the Biltmore House. On our trip all these years later, I could not have imagined that the house would be filled with Christmas trees in October. What a gift!

Loves, Losses, and Life Everlasting

When someone in your immediate family dies, or willingly departs, a part of you seeks to imagine what life would have been like without that loss.

Yes, I have changed. The world around me changed too. Forward movement.

More than any other defining moment, my sister’s death occurring days after her seventh birthday changed how I experience Christmas and how even now Christmas trees evoke the tenderest memories of her. She called me, “My Carol.”

Renée would have been amazed by all the trees at the Biltmore House. She would have loved to keep singing. She would have changed the course of my life and so many others. Especially our mom.

As a Christian, in the hands of the Sovereign LORD, it comforts me to know and to trust that I have not missed anything that was meant for me. I have also been spared things not meant for me.

Whatever God does, He always does for good.

[1] John 1:1–5