For the first time since 2019, I feel festive this holiday season. Life is more certain than it’s been in four years, this is true. But there’s more to it than that, which for me somehow involves a tree. 

When I was a child, each December my mother assembled the same artificial tree stored the prior 11 months in a box in the basement. The precise triangle silhouette was created by wire branches with long needles a dark green not found in nature. Unlike a live tree, the branches were strong enough to hold the heavy ornaments my mother once made.

I equated my mother’s Victorian-esque ornaments, Styrofoam balls covered with satin and beads, with elegance. For five years, we lived in a house too big for my mother and her husband to afford furniture for every room. The warmly lit Christmas tree stood in front of a picture window in an otherwise cold, empty living room.

The first years I set up my own tree, which were always live, I was college poor. Far cheaper than ornaments, I inserted sprigs of baby’s breath among the branches, on which I had tied satin ribbons. The shiny red bows and bursts of white flowers distributed on the gray-green branches created its own simple elegance.

After my first child was born, I adopted a charming tradition from his father’s family. My ex-husband had a few ornaments with a year handwritten on each. His mother, who had died before I met him, had given her children an ornament every Christmas. Each year, my children’s ornaments share a theme. One year, they all had different mini nutcrackers; another year, it was tiny tin toys — a carousel that spun, a horse and a steamship, both with wheels that rolled. The first Christmas after my last child and only daughter was born, I purchased four silver gingerbread boys and one gingerbread girl.

For many years, our Christmas trees were richly adorned with ornaments that represented memories as much as the holidays. Only once did I choose glass ornaments. Like waterless snow globes, they contained heartwarming scenes. The following year, our tree fell over twice, breaking those (and many other) fragile decorations.

The summer of 2020, I realized the father of my youngest two children was incapable of giving me what I needed, and I moved back to my home. Intrigued by the pre-lit feature they now have, later that year I decided to buy an artificial tree.

Knowing a fresh tree can never be effectively replicated, what I really wanted was one of those aluminum trees popular in the 1960s. They were illuminated by a rotating color wheel, which changed the trees from green, to blue, to pink, to an odd salmon shade. Instead, I found a tree that is silver at the top and then, in a gentle ombre effect, turns fully gold at the bottom. 

My metallic tree provided welcome light on the dark nights of winter. I left it plugged in for three months that year and did so again the next two winters. But what I didn’t do was decorate it. I simply could not bring myself to drag out the bins of ornaments and holiday decor.

At the time, I figured it was because I’d been holiday decorating for over three decades and I was, well, over it. However, there are things in life that cannot be fully understood without distance. I see now while feeling deep loss, I found it hard to act festive.

When a relationship — either personal or professional — has received years of investment and then ends when it becomes clear a commitment to a common goal is not shared, years of life seem wasted. Asking what lessons were learned only feels pathetic when what has been lost is the one thing that can never be regained — time.

And, of course, those same three years my tree remained unadorned, the world was plunged into a pandemic, making it hard to spend in-person time with family and friends. What life would look like on the other side was unknowable.

This year, I needed a live tree. Long ago, a friend (aptly named Noelle) introduced me to the perfection of a Fraser fir. With short, soft needles, it’s easy to hang ornaments on their branches without children’s fingers getting pricked. After Thanksgiving, I found Fraser firs at Whole Foods for the competitive price of $70. All were wrapped, so rather than scrutinizing them for the perfect shape, I chose one that was tall, but also bulged with ample branches under the netting.

At home, the fir first looked like it was in the midst of a mugging — its branches all held upwards. But after a day, they relaxed, revealing a most perfect tree. I brought out my ornaments and also my collections of nutcrackers, snow globes and wooden alpine vignettes.

While its passage is irretrievable, time does soften some of life’s rougher patches. This year my heart is tender, but no longer torn. And a fresh Fraser fir, bejeweled in twinkling lights and thoughtful ornaments, reflects my readiness to celebrate once again.

This column first appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, December 17, 2023.