In the years when we were
teenagers, Mama bought a silver aluminum Christmas tree, and we decorated it with
all our old decorations she had accumulated over those early years. Our favorite
lights were the old-fashioned bubble lights that looked like oil pumping up
inside, made to look like a candle.
We had a couple of little plastic
reindeer which looked like a rocking horse. I still have one of those plastic
reindeer, pink and fragile, probably 60 years old. There was also a little
Santa Claus and maybe an angel made out of the same plastic material. We had a beautiful angel to top
the tree but I don’t remember much about what it looked like.
I still have a few
of those items myself, and have picked up a few over the years. Sorry to say,
many of those items have totally fallen to pieces, because items made in the
1940s and 50s were made of a low-quality plastic and were not made to last 75
years.
We loved the silver icicles or
tinsel that we threw over the tree branches, and as recently as two years ago,
I bought some like them to decorate my artificial tree. I read that the early
icicles were made out of lead but the new ones available today are some kind of
plastic with a metallic coating.
What does any of this have to do
with Christmas? Many Christians have turned away from decorating a tree for
Christmas since it was obviously not part of the early-day Christian church’s
holiday observations. There are many traditions that have sentimental value to
many Christians and I’m one of those sentimental types. My personal opinion is
that what the Bible speaks about, I teach. When the Bible is silent, I remain
silent.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever
follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12 NIV
