Every holiday season I tell myself I should decorate more than I do, which is minimal. This discussion invariably includes the more practical me listing all the reasons why I shouldn’t: a small house heated by wood tree-friendly; the cat will be alone for a few days over Christmas and any decorations might be too tempting to ignore. That sort of thing.
Even so, the longing remains. This morning for some reason it hit me especially hard as I went out with the dogs. Apparently the Christmas spirit took notice of my mood because while the dogs were doing their doggy thing, I happened to look at the far yard and saw this:
“This” is a roughly 20’ tall spruce (I think) I dug up in the woods and replanted there 25 years ago. At the time it was about 2’ tall, so small it seemed like it would take it forever to grow. And yet grow it did until it literally anchored that part of the yard.
When I saw it in the early morning light with its naturally flocking of snow I realized that nothing that I could put in the house could equal it in beauty. As I write this, the temperature is rising rapidly and all of its natural decoration and and skirt of snow surely will be gone by the end of day. In a way, that makes seeing it that much more special.