My friend asked me at dinner last night about our Christmas tree, “Did you graduate to a real tree or are do you still have a Charlie Brown tree?” For my entire adult life, qualifying adult as since I’ve lived on my own, I’ve had a small tree, probably less than two feet tall. I’ve always called this a Charlie tree, a nod to Charlie Brown, because I continually purchase the less beautiful tree on the lot. The little runty ones almost always speak to me.
This year, we no longer live in a small condo but in an actual house. I looked at the Charlie tree’s when visiting the lot earlier this week, and I felt a tug on my heartstrings. But we moved along to the five-foot section and found a tree there that is more to the scale of our room. We are decorating the tree tonight and I will admit that the size is nice. However, I could have been just as happy with a tiny, malformed tree.
This is who I am; I champion the underdog every time. Probably a trait I inherited from my mom, who is always speaking up for the other guy, with the other perspective, whatever that may be. In my case this applies to many things, Christmas trees, dogs, children, anytime I see something or someone not embraced off the bat I jump in.
I think it boils down to being drawn to the less obvious, attracted to the unusual. There is so much going on in this life, so many people living at one end of the volume scale or the other. But there are a million things to see in the subtle, in the less obvious. That’s where the interesting part of life is happening.