Hanging Christmas balls

This is one of four seasonal posts that reflect my struggles to live with integrity in a society built on consumerism, industrialism, and systemic oppression. How can I reconcile my desire to change the world and my desire to accept the world as it is? Doubts and dilemmas run through all four posts, and I describe tripping over myself (in ways that are typical of someone who leads with a One in the Enneagram). I also mark times when Spirit uplifts me and turns me around unexpectedly, times when I am more aware of God’s expansive presence within me.

• Spring: Easter egg hunts, consumerism, materialism, and acceptance
• Summer: swimming pools, landfills, and environmental racism
• Fall: leaf blowers, industrial culture, principles, and humility
• Winter: lighted Christmas balls, appreciating the natural world, and living in a neighborhood

Note: I live in a neighborhood in Greensboro, North Carolina, where people hang balls of Christmas lights in the trees at Christmastime. It's a big deal. I published this essay in the September 2024 Sunset Hills Newsletter.

Christmas ball season approaches, and I admit that I’m ambivalent. I know: heresy! Please forgive me (or stop reading). I dislike my own unconventional thinking, my inability to enjoy the things that bring people around me such joy. Why does hanging Christmas balls make me feel sad? I offer this not as an argument but as a lament, the confession of an aberrant.

My wife, Kate, made our nine balls. I remember hanging them last year, and the year before. As I chuck a tennis ball over the branches of the big oak in our front yard, I think about the tree. Having shed its leaves, it stands bare and beautiful. Long ago my dad had a friend who said he loved trees in wintertime because he could see their architecture. I agree. Our willow oak, like all the deciduous trees around it, has a magnificent structure. I marvel at its overall symmetry and the uniqueness of each branch. This tree needs no decoration. It is perfect as it is.

As we hang our balls and prepare to light up the night, I think about darkness. At Christmastime there are so many extra lights, most of them artificial. Maybe they make a dark season merrier. I find them overwhelming (along with the extra noise and bustle and stuff).

Years ago I lived in New Mexico. I remember happily returning to the high desert after spending Christmas with my family in Georgia. New Mexico in January was so quiet and dark, except for the reflection of starlight and moonlight on the snow. My body sensed relief and release. I need the darkness to calm my senses and rejuvenate my soul.

I can’t help thinking about the electricity that lights our balls. We followed the advice of the Sunset Hills Environmental Affairs committee and replaced our incandescent bulbs with LEDs (they’re more energy efficient—and even brighter). The lights are silent at night, but the electricity comes from burning coal extracted from the earth by blowing up mountains. Christmas joy is one outcome of this process, climate chaos another. I try not to think about this as I hang our balls. I try to think about the neighborhood I love and about delight. Meanwhile, the stars in the sky grow fainter; they can’t compete.

Getting the darn balls in the tree isn’t easy. Kate and I struggle and curse each year, untangling knots, yanking the tennis ball when it gets stuck, puzzling out how to use our limited supply of extension cords to connect all the balls. Neighbors come by and talk to us, but I’m mostly too frustrated for conversation. We joke that hanging the balls presents another opportunity for working on our marriage.

As we struggle to get the balls up in the tree, I think about gravity, so unremarkable, so awesome. Everything falls down. It’s a law of nature. Water falls. Snow used to fall when it came. The trees drop their leaves, their acorns, their pinecones. To defy gravity requires energy and ingenuity. (Behold the mighty oak, persevering in its growth upwards!) So of course it is a struggle to get something up into the tree. And I wonder why we bother. Gravity pulls us back to the earth, to the ground, to the soil. I stand rooted in the earth, not quite like a tree, but when I’m still and pay attention, I feel the connection between my body and the ground and I feel the earth energy rising in me.

Kate finds the Christmas balls in our neighborhood magical year after year. I admit: the balls around the park are spectacular. Light is sacred. The Christmas story (the one about Jesus) prominently features starlight. Jesus even called himself the “light of the world.” Every other religious tradition I know also venerates light and uses it in ceremony. As human beings we know deep in our souls how precious light is. Without light there is no life.

I also know that darkness is sacred. In darkness we rest and dream. Our imaginations come alive. We slow down and yield. Why do we remain afraid of the dark in our culture?

I know that trees are sacred. I see God in them. They give back more than they take, nourishing life. As sunlight decreases, they wisely drop their leaves and hunker down. They know there is a season for letting go and falling to the earth.

If we really listened to the trees in our neighborhood, I wonder what they would tell us. Slow down? Stop? Prepare for the season of darkness? Or maybe even: rein yourselves in?

I am torn between the cheer of Christmas ball season (the comradery, the light) and the deep holiness of dark winter. I want to celebrate. I want to hibernate.

Last year we took our balls down soon after Epiphany (January 6). As our neighbors took theirs down, nighttime became a little darker (though still not very dark). I’m no stargazer, but before bedtime I enjoyed watching Orion traverse the night sky. Our Christmas balls may be magical, but they cannot compete with the magic of the stars.