Tree Lot

My wife and I grew up with various Christmas traditions, some alike, some different. One common thread we had was asking ourselves the point behind the traditions. We both had some “deeper” meaning, but it wasn’t very significant.

For some, these traditions are a time when family can get together and spend time with one another. A time when fun can be had and memories made. These traditions fulfill those aspects for us as well, but there’s more.

I honestly couldn’t see myself continuing to put a huge pine tree in my house, run lights around it, and hang ornaments on it (along with other traditions of Christmas) without a little more reason that fun and memory. I can have plenty of fun and create many memories without having the mess and cost of a tree. So, instead of tossing out the standard Christmas traditions, we decided to keep them and redeem some more value from them.

For us, we decided to continue getting a tree as a way to remember all that Jesus did for us. We relate the tree we place in our home to the tree that Jesus sacrificed his life on, the lights to Him being the light of the world, and the ornaments as a way for our family to remember the sustaining love He gives year after year through his work on his “tree”.

Do we need to do this? No. At the end of the day, not having a tree isn’t going to ‘ruin’ Christmas for us since it doesn’t have intrinsic value. It’s a middle issue of freedom to do with whatever we’d like. So for us, we decided to keep it but give it a little more worth.