The Christmas Tree

This year no tree went up. For me, that is not normal. I just didn’t feel like it. I wrote this as a moment of reflection for the season. Most of the time growing up this is what our Christmas tree looked liked and I’m pretty sure this was more presents then we had under our tree. We didn’t have a Christmas tree at our house. It pretty much went like this. Here is the clothes I bought you and we are now going to The paternal grandma’s house. I loved to admire the tree that she had. Every year I would see new ornaments and I would just enjoy looking at each one. Don’t get me wrong, when we were younger my family would go to my grandmas house and I remember having a lot of presents there ( mainly from my aunts and uncles) and we would stay up all night laughing and playing music. As we grew up that slowly changed to staying at home and no tree no presents. Other then a trip to JCpenny to pick something out. This year my fake Christmas tree stayed in the closet. I got use to the silence consumed in tamales and hallmark movies. I had many invites to attend friends festivities but the inner chaos didn’t let me go. It’s hard to see babies, happy couples and laughter of family members when that was a distant memory and is far from your reality. I’m talking about the reality of someone who is married and has children. If you read this far your probably thinking we are diving in a deep hole now. It would be easy to be consumed in this but it took many years of sheer unexplainable will power to flip my mindset. As I sit in silence I started thinking of all the immigrant children still separated, detained, orphaned or homeless. My mindset shifted when I took my self out of the picture and asked myself what could I do all year that would help others. I discovered my purpose pretty “late” in my young life. I discovered that I want soul filled purposeful fueled life. So, slowly I started to mark what I wanted for the next decade. I want to make sure that the purpose of the Christmas tree is present all year and not just one day. I want every once of gifts and talents that I have to be used in this life time. I encourage you to take some time and revisit what you want to see manifest itself for the next decade. Is it really what’s under the Christmas a tree that matters?