It’s that time of year when we reflect on our success and failures and make resolutions. There are the standard resolutions, of course, like health, wealth, and happiness, and if it is a fun New Year’s Eve, the resolution to never drink again. However, I never thought much about cows and shaking Christmas trees when making my resolutions. Until this year.

A two-year-old in my life has a Fisher Price toy called a See ‘n Say. The See ‘n Say varies in its themes, but they all have a dial that is turned to point to a picture. A lever is pulled to hear the sound connected to the selected picture. My toddler has the farm version. She is a bit worried and frightened of the cow. In fact she’s not much of a fan of cows in general. (A sentiment I share. See Spring in Oxford post). While it is easy to avoid the cow by skipping its picture and corresponding moo, there is a place to play the song, “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”, and no way to determine which animal will be featured in each verse. Playing the song, a fun activity, becomes a child’s version of Roulette, with her mother ready to halt the toy in mid-moo when the song stops on the cow. The cow is much like those unexpected things that come up in our lives, even after carefully planning the New Year ahead of us. We so want to hear the cat or the dog.  How do we get past the cow?

For most of us, cows continually show up and block our path, forcing us to evaluate our choice of direction and we either face the cow or run away. It all depends on the cow’s temperament. Sometimes, the cow is a lumbering, huge, innocuous distraction, noticed without altering our course. At other times, we might have to change our direction, take another path, because that ornery cow wants to trample us. The point is that cows are always in our lives, no matter how much we try to avoid them. Most times, we do not have someone who will deftly move us past the cow with a quick flip of a lever, so, as we make our New Year Resolutions, it is important to remember the many cows that will get in our way of achieving those lofty plans. We also need to recognize signs that our resolutions are attainable and personally fulfilling – not things we should become or ought to be doing – concepts I rely on way too much in my life. This is where the Christmas tree comes in.

The day after Christmas, I was sitting in my son’s apartment, waiting for him and my daughter-in-law to return from their Christmas getaway, and writing out my morning gratitude list, a daily practice I seldom skip. There was no wind, no air blowing from the heater, no refrigerator running, and no trolley rumbling by the building. Suddenly, and I mean without any visible or other cause, the Christmas tree began to shake, not a mere tremble of a branch or needles falling softly to the ground. That tree shook, violently, a harsh word, but accurate. It shook like it had a chill running up its trunk. The other freakish thing about that tree was that it was dry, but it would not let go of any of its needles. The bone dry tree never dropped a needle, even when we pulled on its branches.

Now there are several ways to explain the shaking. The thought of a rat running up the trunk of that tree was not an explanation I wanted to explore. Considering their apartment is shared with a hound/Labrador dog, I figure any critter in that place would have been treed long ago. Maybe the tree was tired of all the ornaments hanging on it, those symbols of the tree’s burden of providing cheer and goodwill. I had to consider the possibility of a post-Christmas tree uprising. An earthquake, perhaps, a slight tremble accentuated by the tree. But, unlike the Grinch, I think the most likely reason of all was not that my heart was three sizes too small, but that by taking the time to list my blessings, I was heard by the tree. There were no bells to ring on the tree, like in the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, but I like to think several angels were getting their wings that day for guiding me, a hopeless, often clueless person, through another year and keeping me from encountering too many aggressive cows along my path.

And, let me tell you, that help is greatly appreciated and those wings were hard-earned!

(to be continued)