The Enduring Christmas Spirit

I know, it's April. But not too long ago we were gathered around a beautifully decorated tree singing carols and sharing family time. One thing we always pray for during the hoiday season is that the love and peace would endure throughout the year. I want to affirm today, that it truly does. You see, a few weeks before Christmas 2004, I put up our artificial Christmas tree. We considered if it had shed enough of its plastic needles that perhaps this might be the last year for our humanly created 'tree'. It still looked pretty good with the lights on it, in the dark. Economically speaking, though, it surpassed the frantic search through a tree lot looking for one that was not only affordable but whose trunk was straight. The straight tree trunk is an invention of the female species of humans. No male has ever seen a straight tree trunk in the midst of the fir branches. Thus he believes they do not exist. But the female has greater vision and faith. My neighbor bought a 'was alive a few weeks ago' tree off of a tree lot. I'm sure he and his lovely wife deliberated with great care over the selection of a tree. They brought it home. They then participated in another tradition of tree-buyers: the cutting of the lower branches. I need to tell you that I have a concrete drive across the front of my house ... a mini-parking area. At the end of that drive is where I pile branches from the yard after storms, so that the appropriate waste disposal engineers can pick them up when the time is right. Knowing this, my neighbor placed his sawed-off lower branches in the appropriate place. But there were just a few of them. Not enough to catch anyone else's attention. Of course I noticed them the day they arrived. And I noticed them every day because they lay there close to my truck. I probably could have picked them up and put them on my garbage cans and they would have been disposed of. But there was principle involved here. I was sure that my neighbor would notice those branches and come out and put them on his garbage where they belonged. Surely he noticed them day in and day out, week after week, month after month. Why wouldn't he? But no. I didn't pick them up, and he didn't pick them up. They just were there, turning brown and looking worse and worse. By now you might be wondering just where my Christmas spirit went. Dear reader, my Christmas spirit was intact. It's that part of the Christmas spirit that yells at the kids to put their new toys up and get them out of the floor. It's that part of the Christmas spirit that says with a sigh, "turkey again?" It is that part of the Christmas spirit that threatens to give all of the children's toys away to other children if they do not quit fighting over them. It speaks the truth, with love of course. And then the other day the flood came. Water covered the street and came half way up into my yard (depositing the pine needles and paper and assorted stuff from the street along the way). My attention was drawn to the water, so I forgot about the Christmast tree branches. Until today. Today on the top of a neighbor's garbage can was a sight that made my belly shake like a bowl full of jelly with laughter. No, it wasn't my immediate neighbor, but my neighbor three houses down. The branches floated innocently to her house on the floodwaters. Instead of letting them sit there until our mutual neighbor got the idea to pick them up, the Christmas spirit overflowed and she placed them on her garbage can. See? What did I tell you? The Christmas spirit lives. Thankfully, because of that, I no longer have to see my neighbor's tree branches on my driveway. In fact I shall celebrate that fact by telling this story every Christmas season. It truly warms my heart. I'm happy to share it with you. Season's Greetings, friends.