Here's a story I made up and told at a Yule ritual for our church's pagan group.
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What Does a Christmas Tree Want?
Last year, right around this time, I came home from church to find Christmas tree ornaments in my front yard. OK, on the asphalt in front of my house. (Y'all know I live in a trailer and don't actually have a front yard.) Couldn't imagine who had been dragging ornaments out of the house, or why. There were a couple more in the planters by the door.
Only then did I see the branches sticking out of the mail slot. "Hello," I said, "what's this? Looks like a Deirdre art project!" (My daughter, the performance artist.)
I stooped to pick up the ornaments, and when I looked up again, the branches were back inside the house.
Well, I went right inside to see what was going on. The tree, of course, was standing up straight without a single branch or ornament out of place. Well, maybe one.
That night, when I was half-asleep, I heard scratching and swishing noises, and maybe a thump and a tiny crash as of paper-thin gilt glass breaking, and a doorknob-like rattle; but I knew by then that I was dreaming.
Over the next week or so I caught sight of branches in the mail slot three or four times. Even in broad daylight. Well, you know, when my husband and daughter get online, the whole world ceases to exist, and I, of course, was at work all day. So there was no explanation forthcoming.
After about ten days of this, I was restless one night, and lay awake in bed reading. The bedroom door was open so the heat could get in. I could see the tree from where I lay, and by all that's weird and wonderful, it was trying to open the door. I got up and marched out to the living room. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked.
"Down to the mall," the tree answered. Even though it was midnight! "I'll get in like Santa Claus does! Then I'll pick out presents for all the kids who wouldn't get any. Santa Claus forgets sometimes. And the grownups too. And turkey & stuffing for everybody!"
"But Christmas," I said, "is about more than food & presents..."
The tree asked: "Can I have your pearl necklace, then? I know someone who would like it."
"What pearl necklace?"
The tree fell silent.
"Who's getting me a pearl necklace?" I wanted to know.
The tree said, "Oh, but Christmas is about more than food and presents. You said so. And you're right. It's also about the ornaments." It twirled around slowly, reveling in the decorations I had trimmed it with.
"You know," I said, "I thought Christmas was strictly a human thing. Human cut down trees and drag them away from their homes and put shiny stuff all over them…what does a tree get out of it?"
The tree looked at me (How it did so without eyes, I don't know; but it did) and took my hand. "Let's go down and talk to the other trees," it said. So, whoosh bang fandango, suddenly we were a mile away at the nearest Christmas tree lot. The lights were out, it was dark, and the trees were whispering together.
"Ow. These nails hurt my trunk."
"Hang on, sister. Pretty soon you'll have your feet in a nice bucket of water."
"Oh, I hope so. Is it true about the jewelry?" This question came from a little Douglas fir.
There was a ripple of branchy laughter from all the other trees in the lot. "Ahhahaha! This must be your first time?"
"Yes," said the little fir.
"Well, it is true. Of course, you have to work with what you get. Sometimes it's only paper and glitter, but I've done a lot of good work with that," said a plump Scots pine.
"School ornaments," muttered a gappy cedar. "I remember."
"I like mercury glass best," said a spruce, "and old jewelry that has been around for years, collected bit by bit. Have you ever gone back to the same family year after year, to wear the same jewelry again?"
"There's plenty of power in returning," said the spruce. "But I don't think it really matters where. There's good work to be done everywhere." And the trees went on to remember how they had used the ornaments to bring good luck to the families that had brought them home & decked them out. So many strange stories of tree magick I heard that night! Stories handed down from the ancient days when people got their trees from the wild forest. Days long before Jesus and the little drummer boy and the blazing star of Bethlehem, when all the juicy green power of the natural world could be concentrated into one winter-green tree for one sharp night. Oh, most trees are content to wear all your ornaments, shiny plastic from Woolworth's, Bohemian silvered glass, glitter and construction paper, they don't care! just so it shines! Most trees are content to watch you squeal and rip open the boxes of toys and perfume and ties and odd things to eat.
But some trees are more ambitious; because at Yuletide any tree has a chance at being the Tree of Trees, the living center of the world! I think that's what one tree meant - a tiny one in a little pot - when it said, "Some Christmas I'm going to work the big miracle." (My tree nudged me at this point.) The other trees laughed. "Oh no, little one. That takes all of us together."
"And it takes all the jewelry we can muster."
The little Douglas fir, the tree whose first Yule this was, asked: "What's the Big Miracle?" Nobody could quite describe it…
"Each leaf on the Great World Tree is an event: a birth, a death, a joy, a meanness, a pleasure, a pain. When people take us into their homes, each piece of jewelry they give us is a prayer, a hope, a memory. We wrap our magic and the world's luck around each piece. For thousands of years we've done this. For thousands of years we'll do it again."
Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, and Blessed Be, all of you.
Gently Feral