Language
and romance...
Early on in a relationship, two people smash their differences into each other, sometimes in slow flows of cautious sharing, other times in large explosions of vulnerability and openness. In these early stages of relationship, the couple begins to navigate their different languages. Even two people from similar upbringings will find new and/or curious words and expressions in the other. As a relationship grows, the couple begins to form a blended language, a new form of communication that works within their relationship, taking the best/weirdest/most interesting phrases and terms from one another and forming new idioms and meanings that they use with one another. This happens subconsciously as they spend time with one another, but also consciously as the couple finds disruptions in their ability to communicate and actively address miscommunications. In my own relationship, one of the early miscommunications involved Christmas Trees.
To me, a “Live” Christmas Tree is a tree that is alive. A “Live” Christmas Tree comes from a garden center and has a burlap bag below it holding soil and roots. Growing up, when we took down our “Live” Christmas Trees, we would plant them in the yard. Many of the firs and pines that grow around my childhood home were once “Live” Christmas Trees that we planted. One of these former Christmas Trees is now over 40 feet tall. It was, and is, alive; a living thing; that lives… it is/was a “Live” Tree.
A “Live” Christmas Tree is distinct from a “Cut” Christmas Tree, which is a tree that was raised as a crop on a Christmas Tree Farm and was cut down for the purpose of decoration. A “Cut” Christmas Tree, at season’s end, would end up in the burn pile or would be sent off to become mulch.
In the pre-Christmas bliss of one of our first years together, we were bonding over the superiority of “Live” Christmas Trees. We were mocking a particularly fake looking “Artificial” Christmas Tree. “Artificial” trees lacked the smell and the texture and the feel of the real deal. We agreed that an “Artificial” tree, as the dominant Christmas tree in the house, was a sign of a home with a weak Christmas game (“Artificial” Tree technology has really improved over the last 15+ years).
Then we started glorifying “Live” Christmas Trees. I always felt they were wonderful. I loved that the first Christmas tree in the house where we lived was growing in the backyard, but we didn’t always have a “Live” tree. We didn’t have the space to plant a tree every year, but this girl was all about the “Live” Christmas Tree. She was telling me that her family always had a “Live” tree and she effectively shared her deep passion regarding the “Liveness” of the tree and its necessary aliveness to make Christmas, Christmassy.
I mostly agreed with her, regarding the superiority of the “Live” Christmas Tree, but I remember feeling a little bashful about my “Cut” tree. I was a little embarrassed to admit that, while I am a fan of the “Live” Tree, my family didn’t get “Live” Trees every year. We were not above getting a tree cut down. I was worried that this girl who, in so many other ways, seemed absolutely wonderful, would reject me for my barbaric tree chopping practices. This girl loved Christmas and loved nature, and I absolutely loved nature and I celebrated Christmas, but, dang, planting an annual evergreen just wasn't feasible for me.
Later, I saw her family’s Christmas tree. I noticed that it was not, in fact, a “Live” Christmas Tree. There was no burlap sack full of soil and roots. They had a metal stand with a water dish. These people had a “Cut” Christmas Tree, just like me.
I don’t remember when or how I called her out, but I did. Knowing teenage me, I did this with absolutely no maturity or grace, and it’s a Christmas miracle that we remain together to this day. Our conversation probably went something like this:
Scene: We are walking, hand in hand, in peaceful silence with one another around my childhood neighborhood. It’s chilly, but not terribly cold.
Me: So… I notice you don’t have a “Live” Christmas Tree this year.
[beat]
Her: Yeah, we do.
Me: No, you don’t.
Her: You saw it. You could smell it. You touched it. It’s a “Live” ChristmasTree.
Me: No, it’s “Cut.”
Her: Yeah, it’s “Cut,” but it’s alive. That’s why we water it.
Me: “Cut” isn’t the same as “Live”
Her: (probably sighs) Then what is a “Live” tree?
Me: One you can plant.
Her: Oh… (probably laughs)
[beat]
Her: ok.
[beat]
Her: You’re an idiot.
Me: Probably. But I’m right.
Her: (rolls eyes)
We continue walking, hand in hand, in peaceful silence with one another around my childhood neighborhood. It’s chilly, but not cold at all. We didn’t know it then, but we had created a new idiom, a new way to talk. We gave a new meaning to the word “Live” that would bring us joy for years to come.
If you want to read more of my seasonal thoughts. You can read these words about the Christian season of Advent.
In Wordy Wordiness,
Walter