From the Leanin’ Tree

Good grief! It’s Christmas day, and we sit here in a mountain home surrounded by conifers, and it’s snowing. The whole scene is a Leanin’ Tree Christmas card. We’ll be around relatives and over-excited kids today, and I think back to the days when my own kids were up at 5AM jumping with excitement. In Billings, where the kids grew up, there was a guy who used to take his helicopter and fly a lit-up Santa sled with reindeer across the rimrocks north of town on Christmas Eve. We would go to evening mass (a hangover from my own childhood), and then tour the city looking at lights. But seeing Santa’s sled was the key – it meant that the kids had to get home and get to sleep so that he could come visit.

They figured that out soon enough, but it had charm. I wonder if he still does that. Not Santa – the helicopter guy.

Anyway, I often write about religion here – I don’t much care for it. Christians have coopted the winter solstice, and now maintain that it isn’t a real Christmas unless you also worship. Without Jesus, they say, it’s just a materialist orgy. It is that, for sure, but long before there was a Jesus, when it was deep winter and the fields could not be worked, when people were stuck in their huts for untold hours of darkness, they began to celebrate that date when the days would start getting longer. I too like that idea – Christmas is a sign that it’s only 65 days or so now until pitchers and catchers report to the practice fields in Arizona and Florida.

It’s a time for sharing our bounty and talents, for families to gather. I wish I was with my own kids today – they are scattered all over and each decided this year to stay in place. None of them are churchers, but when they get together, they are oddly like every other family, and their Christmas memories are just as pure as anyone’s.

So, from one who loves this pagan ritual to all of you who come here to, I hope, be entertained, Merry Solstice, and many more.