The Half Tree and the Red Thread

Today I did something I never do before Thanksgiving. I put up my tree. I didn't put it up to start getting it ready for Christmas, or to decorate it.  I put it up because I needed to reassure myself.

Earlier today I was talking to my sister, who had the same tree, and who complained that it was very small.  She was at a store, buying a new tree.  She found one that pretty much was my dream tree:  not too large (5 ft) with color and white changing LED programable lights.  She offered to buy it for me and send it to me.  I was not sure at first, because I had this tree in an unopened box... the tree I figured would work really well in the apartment, but the tree she offered was so ideal, that I had to say yes.   She texted me a few minutes later to tell me it had sold out online, and it wouldn't be sent to me.

Well.

I needed to convince myself after that that this tree would be OK... that it would work.  That it would look good.  That it would make me happy.  But all I could think of when I saw it up was "this is only a half a tree". 

The angle doesn't show it well here, but there is too much space, proportionally speaking, under the tree.  Perhaps that's for presents.  Perhaps it's just cheaper than branches.  I probably have only about 2.5 feet of branches there to put ornaments on. I'm not sure if they'll hold the weight of the individual ornaments.  It's not a tree. It's a half tree. 

So I'm looking at my half tree and looking in the box for my lights to put on it later.  And I realize I only have one of the two boxes of lights, because when I gave Cay our old tree when she moved in with her boyfriend, I gave her half the lights.  I have half the lights for my half tree.  Cailin has the other half.  Then I noticed how few ornaments I had.  Because I gave Cay half... half of the half I had before, the half I didn't send to her and Todd a couple years back.  Todd has half the ornaments, Cay has a half of the half, and I have a half of a half to put on my half tree. 

I looked for my tree skirt... and remembered I gave it to Cailin also. It was the tree skirt I bought to replace the tree skirt I bought that I ended up sending to Todd and Cailin in Santa Fe.  I have to get a new tree skirt, because all of my tree skirts are with my other kids.  

My star is here.  At least the star is here that isn't the star I sent to Todd when I sent the ornaments and the tree skirt, and not the star that lit up that I gave to Cay, because I only needed half the stars I had, which was two, because there is only room for one star on the top of the tree.  

And there are half the garland beads.  The red ones are gone.  They went with Cay. I have the white ones. 

So I'm looking at my half tree, and looking at the little amount of decorations I have left, and I'm thinking, what I have is still more than this little tree might be able to hold, that what I have left is still enough to decorate this little tree very well.

And what I don't have, those little bits and pieces I've given away, parts of my tree, my Christmas, my traditions, symbols of the things I love... well, they're with my kids.  And that's as it should be. 

Now, during the pandemic when we won't be together, we have this: these shared items, these pieces of us, spread over miles and miles, but somehow still bringing us together. (oh, I'm sure Todd will write to tell me that he's tossed a lot of it out, but I'm sure there is plenty that remains) 

Suddenly, this little half tree isn't so bad.  In fact, I'm seeing it in a new light. It's not a half tree at all. It's the fragment here of a larger family tree, a larger tradition, a larger set of symbols.  It's one end of a rope that leads from home to home and back again.  It's just one end of the red thread.