I'm writing in my living room as I sit on the fainting couch. (The couch is cool. Trust me.) It's about midnight and my house is mostly quiet. The tree is beautiful with white lights, candy canes and simple ornaments. I am remembering some very good Christmases.
The first Christmas we were married we were dirt poor, living in a tiny (actually, microscopic might be a better word) apartment in Provo, south of BYU campus. We had no money for a tree or decorations, but one night there was a knock at the door (we had no doorbell) and when we opened the door there was a tree, a stand, and a box of inexpensive ornaments. We decorated as if we were kings. And every person I saw became a suspect. Was it my Grandma and Grandpa who lived in Provo? Another young couple from church? One of the older couples on our street? I have no idea, but I hope they had a wonderful Christmas.
Another year we were living in Korea and our friends, Dan and Wendy, had no tree. I asked why, and Wendy said they had decided not to get one because of money issues. On the way back from Seoul about a week later, a man was selling Christmas trees on the side of the road and I asked my friend Diane to stop so I could get a tree for Wendy. When she heard the situation she said she wouldn't stop unless I let her pay half. So we got the tree together and back in Osan found a Korean man and told him to take the tree to Wendy's house, but not to tell her who it was from. He agreed, and she called me right after that to say, "Someone brought us a tree!" =) Several years later, just a few months before she died, she called and said, "If I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?" This, I might add, is an unfair trick question. I agreed, wondering what I could have hidden from her. She asked if I had brought her the tree. Darn it all. I confessed, and told her Diane's part. What can I say? She has done so much for me. A tree is nothing for a friend like that.
When I was in highschool my family moved to Morocco. At first I knew it was my parent's plot to destroy my life. I could write several books on the whole thing, and might some day. But it's Christmas that I've been thinking of lately. Oddly enough. We put up a tree and decorated it, and what would have looked like a full-sized, wintery tree in our house in Minnesota, looked small in our huge, open house in Morocco. The polished stone floors and French doors with views of flowers and our banana tree, along with the complete lack of Christmas decorations and celebrations outside made the tree seem out of place. But it was Christmas. We had a maid who lived with us and was a wonderful cook. She and her relatives kept our house clean and our family well-fed. But one day she said to my mother, "Madam, can I ask you something? Why do we have a tree in the house?" We were all surprised, and tried our best to explain why, when we were celebrating the birth of the Savior, we brought a tree into the living room and hung things on its branches. That year my friend, Pierre-Paul, invited me to attend midnight mass with him. (There is a Catholic cathedral in Rabat. Foreigners may practice their religions in Morocco, but the Moroccan people are required by law to be Muslim.) It was impressive. I only realized later, when he asked if I would like an explanation about why Christians celebrate Easter, that he was trying to convert me to Christianity. (In case you are similarly confused, Mormons are Christian. Notice, it's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Click here if you wonder if I'm telling the truth.)
But an odd thing happened around Christmas time in Morocco. You know that really intense Christmas feeling from when you were little? It came back, full-force plus some, in Morocco. And just like in the Grinch story, it came without tinsel or TV ads or store fronts. Moroccans, being Muslim, do not celebrate Christmas. At first I thought it was odd that I would feel so much Christmas spirit in a country with no decorations, but then I looked again. We had shepherds that walked past our house every day, olive trees and dusty roads, and people who knew nothing of a Savior. What better reminders of Christmas. We also had poor people. I don't mean people without cable TV who get food stamps. I mean people living in dirt huts who walk to the well each day for water. And so, on Christmas we went into the medina-- the old part of town-- and just like on the first Christmas, these people had no idea the day was significant. We went to the beggars and brought gifts-- not of gold, frankincense, or myrrh-- but of durhams (Moroccan money). Instead of giving out change, like we usually did, we gave out sizable amounts of cash. I remember a lady sleeping while squatting on the dusty ground, her head in her arms, her hand stretched out before her. We put money in her hand and she opened her eyes and saw the cash and clutched it to her. It was a good thing to do, but how much more if we could have brought them to our house and fed and clothed them. I wish we could have brought them freedom of religion and from oppression. But we had durhams, so that is what we shared.
When I look at my tree tonight, those are the things I see. A tree on my doorstep. A tree on the side of the road. And a tree in Morocco.
