Significant Little Things
It doesn't ask
It just walks in where it left you last
You never know when it starts
Until there's fog inside the glass around
Your summer heart"
In my memory, buying my first Christmas tree was a moment when I truly felt like an adult. It was a plastic, pre-lit tree, and compared to the live Douglas firs and others I grew up with was perhaps a bit in the vein of a Charlie Brown tree, yet it was mine, and that made it special. It was a purchase earnestly made for that year and future Christmases to come.
I picked out the size, fit the bulky box into my car, and assembled it in my little apartment. The bathroom was about the size of a hall closet, and there were cake pans I couldn't fit into the narrow oven. Nevertheless, the place was my own, my little sanctuary I adored.
The Christmas tree and its few ornaments were simple, yet it was an intentional purchase among my hodgepodge of other furnishings. The twin-sized bed was a remnant from my childhood. The green faux-leather couch was offered free to my Dad, who offered it to me. Without those gifts and many others, my apartment would have been much sparser. Perhaps the best gift was two bookshelves, also from my parents, which I filled and filled until the integrity of the shelves were tested. In my little apartment I had books stacked high, and that first Christmas as an adult on my own, I had a Christmas tree.
Lovingly, I hung my first set of colorful glass ornaments on the tree. I took my time, trying to arrange them evenly in the branches. When finished, I turned off all the lights (there were only about five lights total in the whole place) and plugged in the tree. White lights have always been my favorite. I sat on the floor in front of the warm white glow of my tree. It was simple, beautiful, and magical, and I was content.
Throughout the month of December, I consumed Christmas books and movies by the light of the tree. I wrapped a small mound of gifts for family and friends and set them under the tree until it was time to give them away. My apartment was small and full of hand-me-down things, yet it was enough. I had all I needed, and for that, I could have been a magi.
There are times when it's a sluggish kind of chore to be a grown-up, with paying bills and taking care of yourself and trying to figure out your life, along with times when I just feel like maybe I'm only playing pretend at being an adult, as though I'm disguised as someone who knows what they're doing. In either case, it helps to think of that first little apartment which I loved, and of that first Christmas tree: a little magical, and all mine. Proof of being an adult, and the goodness of such a thing, too.
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