I was thinking about perfection today...
A few weeks before Christmas, I read a story about a local woman on a quest for the perfect Christmas tree. She'd already been to four different tree lots in town, and vowed to drag her family through the forest, if necessary, to locate the perfect tree. As justification for her rigorous search, she explained that she had very expensive ornaments -- ornaments that must be displayed perfectly. A photograph showed her scrutinizing a stately pine -- ultimately rejected -- while her husband and toddler stood by in the cold December air.
The owner of the fifth tree lot, remarkably in good cheer, catered to this woman's fancies, personally showing her his best trees. After much effort and anticipation, the man was delighted when the woman finally selected a tree. It wasn't perfect, she said, but it would do. Then she haggled over the price, offering $40 instead of $49 for the tree. After a bit more negotiating and a bit less enthusiasm, the man agreed to the reduced price. To complete the transaction, she handed him a $100 bill. Still able to smile, he went to get her change.
By the time I got to this point in the story I was exasperated -- along the way letting loose a stream of sighs and snorts that alerted my husband to the disturbing nature of what I read -- but I kept reading to see if there was some moment of grace in the story of this woman and her search for perfection. Surely she would give the man her change, or at least a big tip. But, no... she took her money and her tree, and left me with just one thought: How sad.
This woman and her perfect tree crossed my mind several times over the Christmas holiday -- usually when I sat on the couch looking at my own lopsided tree. What we thought was a modest tree in the field turned out to be a giant in our living room. Already secured into our temperamental tree stand, the only option for fitting it in the house required a sacrifice of the top thirteen inches of the tree. The neighborhood kids were mostly kind in pointing out that our tree looked a little odd at the top, and that it didn't have a star. No, there wasn't room for a paperclip at the top of our tree this year.
Late on Christmas Eve, giddy with the prospect of the coming morning's joy, I basked in the glow of blinking lights and cheap shiny balls on our Christmas tree. I remembered trees from years past... the aluminum tree and color wheel my dad brought home one year; the first tree my husband and I picked out together; the tree we decorated with cheese graters and kitchen utensils; and the one that fell over, trapping me and the baby until my husband came home from work. Besides a fond recollection, each of these trees imparted a wisdom that soars beyond the quest for the ideal in life: A reminder to cherish the things that matter -- and the certainty that perfection isn't one of them.
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