How My Christmas Tree Reminded Me of my Healing…
By: Gabcudjoe Wilkes
Tags: Pandemic, New York City, Joy, Christmas, Christmas Tree

Hubby & Me Christmas 2020 Tree Shopping in New York City.

Last night we went to our favorite Christmas Tree Nursery on 145th Street & Broadway. As we exchanged money with the vendor, I said to him: “we almost didn’t buy a tree this year.” The vendor’s response, “I almost didn’t come this year.” That my friends, is 2020.

But as hard as this year has been for all. I didn’t have the heart to tell the vendor that we hadn’t purchased a tree since 2016. Somehow I looked up and four years had passed. For some, that’s not a huge deal. But for Gabby & Andrew Wilkes that is wild. You see when we got married in 2010 we created a holiday tradition of our own — an annual Christmas potluck. We hosted our friends in our Harlem Brownstone every year for six years straight. It was our space to slow down the pace of the year, to celebrate our wins, to dance, to laugh, and to gather.

But in December 2017 my husband and I received some devastating news just one week before Christmas. The news was too hard to bare so we cancelled our annual Christmas party. I simply couldn’t imagine keeping a fake smile on at our party while I processed the jarring news that we had just received. We told our friends we would just host again the following year. But we never did. Not only didn’t we host again. We never decorated our home for Christmas after that moment. A six year tradition ended just like that.

But three years later, I finally felt myself desiring a tree again. Instead of going back to that low place I found myself in three years ago, suddenly I had a desire to “do Christmas” again. The only problem was we were living in the midst of a global pandemic. The year I finally was healed enough to “do Christmas” is the year that for reasons of public health safety, no one was “doing Christmas.” The irony wasn’t lost on me.

As my husband and I pivoted to become COVID safe, we cancelled our Christmas 2020 travel plans and I decided I wanted a tree.

2019’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

Desiring a tree wasn’t a small thing for me. Desiring our own tree was a moment of coming back to myself. It was the act of giving myself permission to reclaim something that once brought me joy. I stayed up until 4am in the morning trimming the tree, playing Christmas music, drinking eggnog, and coming back to myself. Trimming our tree somehow became an act of reclamation for me. As I trimmed our tree, I began to call to the forefront of my mind my favorite Christmas memories. And the memories that I recalled were the moments where I was free to be myself. Free to set my own climate. Free to make space and time for loved ones I held dear. The more I trimmed, the more I remembered. The more I remembered, the more I smiled. The more I trimmed, the more I realized that I had deprived myself of this kind of joy and agency without even realizing it. I had simply stopped trying.

Last Night in Front of My Tree! Christmas 2020

As I trimmed my tree last night, I realized that somewhere along the way I had fallen into solely trimming other people’s trees. Somewhere along the way I had gotten comfortable tending to other people’s Christmas traditions and I had abandoned my own. It dawned on me last night that because my memory of the 2017 crisis had occurred so close to Christmas that year, I had released control of my Christmas in 2017 and never took it back. I put it down but I never picked it back up. I somehow convinced myself that cancelling the dominant thing that brought us joy that year, was a sacrifice I needed to make because I didn’t feel I could show up well in the space as host without being on. All these years later I have to ask myself, why did I think our friends needed us to be “on?” No one ever told us that. Why did I so desperately need to be in control in that moment?

What might have happened if instead of cancelling our tradition that year we kept it? What if instead of cancelling on our friends because I couldn’t find my smile had turned into keeping our party because we needed friendship the most at that time. It could have been a deepening moment to let our community support us as we navigated everything we had to hold. How different might that have made our Christmas memory that year? I’ll obviously never know. But as I trimmed our tree last night into the wee hours of this morning, I made a new commitment to myself — never again to cancel on me. Shift/adjust — yes. Cancel — no.

So in 2020, while the world is shutting its doors to outsiders, and Christmas gatherings are smaller or non-existent, I’ve got my tree. I’ve got my hubby and while Christmas might be smaller this year. It’s not cancelled. For the first time in three years, I’ve found my Christmas healing and I’m not going back. In the words of Nat King Cole: “Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches!” I don’t think I’ll ever look at Christmas trees quite the same. I hope this story inspires you not to cancel on yourself. Even in 2020, find new ways to reclaim what brings you joy and to harness it in a safe but powerful way. You deserve it. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all. The joy you once had is joy you can have again. Don’t give up on it. Reclaim it.