I have decided to forgo the Christmas tree ritual this year. For the first time in my life I won’t have a sweet scented evergreen in my front room during the holidays. <\/p>\n
I wish I could say that this decision was based on some noble attempt to save trees. As some of you know, I am a true tree lover; the mere rustle of leaves or pine branches sends shivers up my spine. I must confess, however, that this decision does not stem from my tree-hugging impulses. If it did I might go buy a plastic tree instead. Actually, I’m not sure I could bear a plastic tree, especially the kind with fake snow. Is this what real tree-huggers resort to?<\/p>\n
Others of you know that Christmas is not my favorite time of year\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe wrapping and trappings, plastic toys made in Taiwan, blinking colored lights and jingle bell rock\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall the cultural kitsch usually leaves me counting down the days until school starts again. Don’t get me wrong. I look forward to singing in Christmas choirs, delighting children with surprises, making fudge, and getting hugs from my Grandmother, but I must admit to a secret sympathy with the Grinch’s detest for most of the rest. Still, my decision not to put up a tree this year isn’t due to my grinchliness either.<\/p>\n
The truth is that it seems silly to put up a tree just for me. I won’t be here for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day so it seems like a waste of time and effort. If I were throwing an extravagant Christmas party or had little children then likely I would feel different. As it is, it seems perfectly reasonable not to have a tree. On the other hand, a voice inside wonders if perhaps this lack of interest in a Christmas tree isn’t a sign of cynicism or worse, laziness. If you didn’t have children would you put up a tree? What if you lived alone? To tree or not to tree, that is the question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have decided to forgo the Christmas tree ritual this year. For the first time in my life I won’t have a sweet scented evergreen in my front room during the holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}