December 24, 2002
Ho ho humbug
Thanks to Tivo, I've been watching all those Christmas specials that used to hypnotize me as a child. In fact, I watched Charlie Brown bungle the big Christmas tree purchase multiple times, at the urging of Anita's 4-year-old daughter, Emma. The Grinch, Frosty, Snow Miser/Heat Miser ... it brought back a flood of Christmas memories. It's amazing how much these images and sounds are intertwined with my recollections of Christmas past. I remember sitting up late, watching Christmas specials on our little black and white TV, waiting for my postman father to return home late from delivering holiday mail. Most vividly, I remember that Norelco commercial, with Santa riding an electric shaver across the snow.
I guess that says something about the commercialization of Christmas. I was also amazed at how this was a recurring theme in many of the specials. Charlie Brown already was hitting commercialism head-on in 1965. The Grinch made his pitch in 1966. I wonder what they’d have thought if they could see Christmas today.
If you want to check out photos of this years decidedly non-commercial tree decorating party, click here.
Posted by Bob Benz at 3:38 PM | Comments (7)
December 7, 2002
13 years of terrorizing Christmas trees ...
Way back in the 20th century, when I was just beginning to replace my records with CDs and the constant ringing of mobile phones was still a twinkle in some demented elf's eye, Lara Edge and I pondered Christmas.
We’d been married a matter of months. Neither of us is particularly religious, but we are spiritual. And we love rituals. We’d already managed to pull off a wedding ceremony that was decidedly non-sectarian but beautifully spiritual. We sprinkled lines from Wallace Stevens’ 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird into the ceremony, which borrowed from Whitman, the Grateful Dead and Roman Catholicism with equal abandon.
It was November 1989. The future loomed before us, shimmering with expectations. Lara had agreed to take a job in Albuquerque, NM, at The Tribune. Shortly after Christmas, she would load our shiny new Ford Bronco II with most of our worldly possessions (including a nervous cockatoo named Sydney) and drive off into the future. I planned to finish my master’s degree at UAB and follow a few months later.
This would be our last Christmas in Birmingham. We wanted to commemorate The Birmingham Years with a Christmas party that would be firmly rooted in the present without losing sight of the past and future. Thus, the Desecrate the Christmas Tree Party was born.
We decided to have a party that would celebrate our friendships. Each person would bring a homemade ornament and put it on the tree. In subsequent years, we’d decorate the tree with ornaments from previous parties, along with new contributions.
I don’t think we realized at the time what an incredible ritual we were creating. Over the next 13 years, our travels took us through Albuquerque, Denver, Austin and Knoxville. Along the way, we met a lot of tremendous people. And their contributions to the tree turned this party into a great opportunity to celebrate friendship, past, present and future.
Our tree has been honored with beautiful Blue Sky soda cans, cut into delicate ornaments that flood my memory with high desert New Mexico mornings. My recollections have been hooked with hand-tied trout flies that reel in memories of a Metallica-mad drummer who is now a big-time attorney. Everything from kitty litter to reindeer condoms to Elvis has appeared on our tree. Some ornaments are ridiculous. Some sublime. But each adds to this evergreen time capsule. This party has touched us, and we hope it’s touched you, too.
As we hit year 13, I catch myself looking back, much the way Wallace Stevens pondered those blackbirds. “When the blackbird flew out of sight,/It marked the edge/Of one of many circles.” You are one of those circles, my friend, and I’d love to hear your recollections of tree parties past. Post them below. Or if you’re too shy to type them, at least pause for a moment to smile and reflect.
Here's this year's party invite.
And here’s wishing you all peace in the New Year . . .
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:37 AM | Comments (1)