Litany for Winter Tuesdays

38°F here, wind NE at 5 mph making it feel like 34°F but, at least for us here on the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle, the 2022 Winter Nightmare seems to be over as warmup happens - - supposed to be 71° on Thursday, 74° this Time next week.

For a return to seasonable weather,

Son of God, we beseech thee to hear us.

By "seasonable" we mean Warm.

Son of God, we beseech thee to hear us.

The Christmas Tree brings a warm glow to 7H when I turn its lights on these early hour mornings. Don't really need any other light until the sun starts lightening the darkness.

Here in 7H, indeed all the years before, our Tree comes down early, well before New Years Day. This year it's felt so warming and heartening that I'm hoping it may stay up until Twelfth Night, Epiphany, 6 January 2023 - - but I'm not in charge here.

The philosophical equivalent of a statue, our artificial Christmas Tree has no soul, hears no prayers, relishes no burnt offerings, unlike Christmas Trees of my childhood and growing up years, which/whom we carefully selected in woods around Bay County, annually on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas Day. Alive and clearly unhappy at being cut and taken to stand as a pagan image, they began shedding needles immediately they were set up in our living room. The stories of their cutting, transport home, setting up, and decorating have been told here various Holiday Seasons over the past dozen years of this blog; but not of their being cast off.

Some days after Christmas Day, before we returned to school after New Years Day, the Tree was unceremoniously stripped of decoration, left with a sprinkling of icicles, laid down on the floor and wrapped in a sheet, and dragged across the living room, leaving a trail of brittle needles anyway, and out the door. From there, down the front steps, around the house to the back yard, up to the alley, and left there for the garbage truck to come round. Early years, it was left standing as a pathetic remembrance of Christmas in the Old Year.

In the years after I became responsible for making the Xmas Tree stand, I clipped the wire holding the Tree upright, knocked off the stand, and took it back down the yard to the place on the driveway side where there was an opening to crawl under the house, and stored it there for use in a Christmas Yet To Come.

The artificial Tree does not, but a live Xmas Tree has a soul, our fresh-cut Trees participating in our family festivities, heard our prayers and squabbling, enjoyed the fragrance of our cooking and sometimes burnt offerings. Wafting up the stairs from Mama's kitchen early on Christmas morning, the waking aroma of the Turkey in the oven. Excitement around the Tree, warmth of a blazing fire, blessings at the Table, rushed preps afterward, loading the car and driving away for an overnight in Pensacola, on the way stopping by Mom and Pop's house in St Andrews.

What the Trees did and thought while we were away was each Tree's story, not mine. I only know that the worship stopped the last Time the tree was unplugged and the stripping began, and putting beloved ornaments away. It was death for the dropping needles Tree. Emily comes to mind:

The Bustle in a House

Emily Dickinson

The Bustle in a House

The Morning after Death

Is solemnest of industries

Enacted opon Earth –

The Sweeping up the Heart

And putting Love away

We shall not want to use again

Until Eternity –

Quickening old memories is a ritual, individual, private and most personal, of the Holiday Season that begins with Thanksgiving, shines even brighter at Christmas, and fades into more memories by New Years, or, for some who want to stretch them out, Twelfth Night. In my stories there were five of us. Now we are two: Walt and Me.