The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

By T.S. Eliot

 

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,

Some of which we may disregard:

The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,

The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),

And the childish — which is not that of the child

For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel

Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree

Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

 

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:

Let him continue in the spirit of wonder

At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;

So that the glittering rapture, the amazement

Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,

So that the surprises, delight in new possessions

(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),

The expectation of the goose or turkey

And the expected awe on its appearance,

 

So that the reverence and the gaiety

May not be forgotten in later experience,

In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,

The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,

Or in the piety of the convert

Which may be tainted with a self-conceit

Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children

(And here I remember also with gratitude

St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

 

So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas

(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is last)

The accumulated memories of annual emotion

May be concentrated into a great joy

Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion

When fear came upon every soul:

Because the beginning shall remind us of the end

And the first coming of the second coming.