Lights.

The Ogle-Christmas tree is officially up and fully outfitted here in 406. One of my most favorite things to do during this season is to let the room stay dark, just for the sake of basking in the multi-colored glow of a douglas fir (or a faux fir) all decked out. I am willing to sacrifice comfortable reading light for the sake of the nostalgic sweetness of the tree’s silently resplendent presence. There is a Christmas that sticks out in my mind as the year I realized how much I love the tree tradition–in 2005, when I was 15, I decorated the tree alone. There was sadness, pure grief, filling up every heart in the Morgan house that Christmas; we were reeling in the wake of a tragedy that shook our family deeply. The tree was my anchor, I think, my reminder that things could still be beautiful and like home, even if home felt different and unsafe. Here is what I wrote that night,

“I just finished decorating the Christmas tree, by myself. It didn’t really bother me to be acting out a family tradition alone, contrary to expectation. I decided to listen to Mae on rhapsody to see if I liked all this Everglow business, and just let it play for the duration of my decorating extravaganza. The tree is acceptable, I think. There are cardinal birds nesting silently in the lower branches and circles of bright and colored light falling through the green. A tiny toy train is posing on a branch nearer to the top, making memories glow and looking something like a box of crayons in an art gallery. White and shining spheres of glass showed fishbowl reflections of my hands while I hung them in carefully randomized spots, making them near to the lights and the window. Gingerbread girl, penguin, wooden santa and various nutcracker soldiers are suspended sweetly in the midst of all of this and carousel horses, elegant and childlike. It’s Christmastime, now.

Oh, and less poetic than these is the top of the tree- extending vertically in one too-long top branch with lights wrapped around it because I decorated and I’m allowed to do that, and an ornament-turned-tree-topper star.

I like it, really.”

Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without the tree.

Another happiness: I heard Chris Martin from Coldplay crooning a lovely rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” on the radio today. I melted. Now, upon hearing it, you may not love it as much as I do, but at least you can appreciate that it is forty jillion times better than 99% of the rest of the Christmas stuff they play these days. I love Christmas music, but I am finding myself exceedingly more discontent with what comes to me over the airwaves. This being so, I assume I am not the only one who feels this way, and so here is a little palate cleanser for the musically uncheered.