Lessons from the Witch Tree

A few years ago, I decided to buy a Christmas tree. I’m culturally Jewish, conceptually agnostic, and ritually a bit of a witch, but a lighted tree is a lighted tree no matter what you believe. I drove to my local big-box store and examined probably 30 or 40 different options in every size and color. There were classic plastic firs, 8-foot-tall LED eyesores, and tastefully restrained options in monochrome silver and gold. All the trees felt festive, in their own way. All of them were fun. So what did I leave with?

This.

Amid the riotous rainbow overstimulation of the big-box store, this dark, creepy little object had looked simple, unassuming, and calm. But the moment I walked outside, the second-guessing and self-recrimination began. Cold rain splashed my hands and hair as I slid the long box into my trunk. You went into the store for a Christmas tree and you came out with a dead branch? Were you raised by wolves? You can’t even decorate for the holidays like a human being.

By the time I got home, the creepy tree had become an emblem of my general unacceptability. I’m not someone who typically cares about being normal, but this felt like such a glaringly obvious error in person-ing. You can’t understand, and you can’t play along. There’s something intrinsically subhuman about you. Warmth and joy and belonging are simply not for you.

I set up the meager twig tree, laughing bitterly at my inability to comprehend this most ordinary of human practices. Then I plugged it in and switched on the lights, and the nasty voice in my head quieted a little. The tree I’d bought was different, yes, and not what I saw in the glowing windows of other people’s homes. But it was lovely, in its own spooky, wintry way. It was right for me.

Then the holiday cards started trickling in. Christmas, solstice, New Year’s Eve, shiny paper and sledding snowmen and happy dogs in bright hats and scarves. I nestled each card carefully among the witch tree’s spindly branches. Before long, the barren failure-twig was fully, colorfully leafed with words of love and cheer from people who didn’t think it strange at all to include me in their celebrations. They thought, I’m sending holiday cards. I should get her address. And that was it. And the tree was beautiful. Its sparse branches made for perfect greeting-card scaffolding, and its glittery fake-snow flocking gently reflected the tiny golden lights.

I left it all up through the new year, until the card-leaves began dropping from the branches. Then I dotted the tree with friendly felt hearts for Valentine’s Day. Pink and red envelopes arrived from friends and family and I stuck those in the branches, too. In spring I hung it with sparkling crystals that looked like cold falling rain.

The cruel voice in my head hasn’t been completely silenced, of course. It still rears up from time to time, reminding me of all the ways in which I am alien, alone, and lesser-than. But it doesn’t have the tree to use as evidence anymore. My witch tree is wondrous and a house for love because it is peculiar. And so am I.

And so are you.

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Top photograph by Joanna Kosinka; remaining drawings and photographs by me. This post originally appeared in small magic (my newsletter) in 2022.