A Bangkok Family Christmas

Saturday, December 1, 2012 10:25 AM -- the very day after the very last day of November, and I witnessed my first sighting of a Douglas Fir strapped to the roof of a car driving west on John F. Kenedy Drive in Golden Gate Park.  I mean, couldn't they have waited another day or so before chopping down this innocent young fir tree?  Six hours later and the second one wizzed past me on Sunset Boulevard.

I  hate Christmas.  Or rather, I hate the commercialization of Christmas.

My first real Christmas tree was back in 1964.  It was a real big deal back then.  I was only ten years old and we were living in Bangkok on Soi 31 off of Sukumvit Road.  Back then, the Thais were just beginning to get what Christmas meant to the Americans stationed over there, and real live fir trees of any kind were virtually unknown.  So, when my friend, Becky, told me of real live fir trees being imported to Bangkok, I rushed to tell my mom and dad.

But long before that year, our beloved Christmas tree consisted of dark green plastic pieces all wrapped up in a cardboard box, which we got from the Navy Base Exchange.  Six one-foot pole-like parts with corresponding numbers embedded in each pole fitted into each other and made up the trunk out of which half-inch nobs protruded.  Into these protrusions with corresponding numbers the larger branches with the same number were attached.  These branches also came with half-inch nobs and smaller branches were fitted onto these nobs according to more matching numbers.  And, yes, these smaller branches had nobs onto which the fir-like leaves were attached.  By the end of the tree construction, we had a perfectly symmetrical six-foot dark green plastic Christmas tree.  I still remember being a part of something big as I helped to assemble and then decorate this plastic fir tree with my family.

Then came the real tree, the live tree, the tree that would make all the difference in our 1964 Christmas, imported especially for the Americans all the way from the hills of somewhere in the United States.  And it was a beautiful tree, with branches that stuck out every which way.  It was a perfect Christmas tree.  It was a special Christmas tree.

And then ten years later, back in the States, I saw it; rows and rows of young fir trees all lined up just like the apple orchards in Washington.  A sign hung on a fence, "Christmas Tree Farm".

Trees grown in a tree farm just for chopping and selling for the Holidays use of less than a month saddens me.  People ask me around the Holidays, "Why don't you ever put up a Christmas tree?"  My answer:  "There are plenty of LIVE trees outside my window that look just as lovely in the sparkle of daylight and  just as beautiful beneath the glow of the moonlight without going out and BUYING A DEAD ONE -- one that was grown specifically for chopping down or rather killing and which will ultimately end up all dried and brown lying in a gutter somewhere; a fitting place for the (by the way) once glorified Christmas tree just for a 30-day occasion of decorating and celebrating a Holy birth."  A dead tree for a Holy birth.  Now, there's a point to ponder!  It just makes no sense to me, spirit or no spirit.

I will never forget my first real Christmas tree, which was then unbeknownst to me most likely grown on a tree farm and which seemed so special back in 1964, but I'd much rather have that boxed plastic one along with some assembly required, because the assembly of this tree was more than just a Christmas tree.  It was the gathering of my mom and dad, brother and sisters on one mid-December evening long ago in a tropical country, working as a team -- a family -- building a Christmas tree from numbered plastic parts and decorating it together with laughter and joy.  And, we would eventually stand back all together like the assembled parts of that Christmas tree and agree that it was the most beautiful Christmas tree ever.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013 12:00 Noon -- A Christmas tree lies alone in the gutter at Fulton and Divisadero Streets.  Another at around 3:30 PM rolls back and forth in the cold wind on Fulton and 36th Avenue.  Both brown and dead.  Both tossed out in the streets for the garbage men to pick up.  Sad.........so very very sad....