Christmas Tree 2023 Style. . .

 

The larger "toy tree" for Christmas 2023 in the corner of our living room here at Totleigh.

Well, Sir.  Old Man Winter blew into the Grand Duchy with quite a gust yesterday.  He brought rapidly dropping temperatures, and a couple of inches of blowing snow throughout the day.  Cold, gray, and wonderfully seasonal outside today in the Currier and Ives way.

I managed to submit my course grades for Fall 2023 yesterday, a full day and a half ahead of the deadline, fielded a few of the usual whiny student complaints almost immediately thereafter -- Accountability, ownership, and resilience anyone? -- and set the automatic reply on my university email until January 8th.  I have now signed off from work-related email for the Christmas and New Year's period.  

The latest two issues of an online journal that I now co-edit with a colleague also went live yesterday, so my brain is mush right now.  Time now to enjoy some mental downtime and get a bit more more into the Christmas spirit, mental fatigue notwithstanding.  It will be nice to think about other things for a while.

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Here in the Grand Duchy, we have continued the tradition of two Christmas trees, something my family used to do during my childhood, formative, and younger adult years.  Today's photograph is a shot of the larger "toy tree" for 2023 in the corner of our living room after decoration last Wednesday evening.  The smaller "family tree," which features hand-made ornaments from the Grand Duchess' and Young Master's childhoods, sits atop a sofa table behind the loveseat in our library.

The 2023 "family tree" with the loveseat and kitchen just beyond.  We have our breakfast nook arranged as another seating area, a second living room or parlor if you will.

The Grand Duchess and I always purchase a couple of Fraser firs if we can.  And this year, we actually had the foresight to drop by our usual tree lot Thanksgiving Weekend when they kicked off the season, to reserve a couple of trees since Frasers always sell out quickly.  

Now, tree decoration is always a personal thing, and each year's is a different masterpiece.  But I think this particular "toy tree" is one of the prettiest we have had in several years.  The silver, transparent, and colored glass ornaments catch the light, shimmer, and twinkle anytime of the day or evening whenever someone moves through the room.  Both trees also still smell fragrant even a week after they were brought home and put up.

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On a completely different, yet related note, when I picked up a prescription at our local big box store pharmacy Saturday, I was struck by how many in the throngs that filled the store stood out as clearly struggling in one way or another.  I've noticed this feature of public life before now of course, and well before the long fingers of Covid that maintain a grip on us, but that want stood out starkly the other day in a way that it had not before.  

I mention my observation not in a smugly comfortable, or profound way.  But as my late mother used to point out, we should thank God/Goddess/the supreme being, or simply blind luck everyday for  kind of life we have (education, opportunity, etc.).  Although they might have the basics, clearly there are still many, many, many families who barely manage to squeak by each month for a wide variety of reasons. 

We ought to keep that in mind as we race through this strange digital, globalized thing that passes for life in late 2023 and toward another Christmas Day.  It's all too easy to become myopic, turn a blind eye, and forget that plenty of people in our own backyards are in need, not to mention those inhabiting other points on the globe. 

Now before anyone reading this gets his/her/their hackles up and leaves a nasty comment below, let me point out that I'm as flawed an individual as many of us are.  I have an impressive string of faults, shortcomings, mistakes, and bad decisions to my credit.  Neither am I an especially great humanitarian before any snide remarks occur to anyone.  All that said, if there is some small way we might come to the aid of our fellow human beings -- and not just around Christmastime -- shouldn't we do so? 

I'll leave the precise shape that "help" might take to readers of this post to determine.  There are different ways we might support each other after all.  The point is that taking the time and opportunity to assist our fellow human beings all year long might help us restore the sense of community that has gradually eroded over the last several decades and now seems largely, even dangerously, absent from public life.

-- Heinz-Ulrich