God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth;” and it was so.

–Genesis 1-11

Behold, the Eastman Family Christmas Tree!

It’s something else, isn’t it? This past weekend, my eldest was home and pining…forgive me, I’ll try to keep the puns to a minimum…for a Christmas Tree. We have a varied journey in this department. At times we’ve employed non-living Christmas trees (for ease of use and cleanup) but for the last several years we’ve been a “live tree” family. This was great, until we got into teenage schedules. Then all manner of heck broke loose.

Trying to find a two-hour window during any of the four weeks leading to Christmas became comical, with the result that most of our trees entered the house less than a week before The Big Day. Which is okay…except the kids (and the cats, as you can see) really wanted the tree in the house earlier.

This past weekend the stars aligned and we got The Right Tree

Or maybe the Right-Now Tree?

See, you may not know it to look at this picture, but our tree is not perfect. It’s a work in progress…and its progress has been cut short. We killed it in the name of Yule, and now it serves us in its adjustable stand until at least December 25th. As long as I keep watering it.

But all that aside, it’s a VERY imperfect tree. One of the kids sat down as I was taking this photo and pointed out that if you trace the outline, it’s nearly in the shape of a maple leaf. So not only does this tree lack the “standard perfect Christmas triangle” shape, it’s a traitor to fir trees!

On the other hand, this tree reminds me of something important…

As we plan the perfect Advent, the perfect Pageant, the perfect Christmas Eve Services, the Perfect Holiday parties…and on and on, one fact remains clear: they won’t be. They just won’t be perfect. They’ll be good; at times, they’ll even be great! But they’ll also have little things that will go off-kilter, and unplanned emergencies, and in the end, they’ll be a lot like everything else. Still not perfect.

But here’s another thing I noticed. If you look back at the tree, in the same way you can trace the outline and see a maple leaf, this tree also includes, right at its center, a perfect triangle. It’s in there. But if we took away all the imperfections, it would be a little…less. And there’d be less room for ornaments, less personality, less of everything.

So I’m embracing my imperfect Advent, and I hope you will too. It will lead to an imperfect Christmas, and after that? A less-than-perfect New Year. But you know what else it could be?

It could be wonderful.