Since I was a child, Christmas has meant putting up a real tree. A Christmas tree’s smell transforms the house. I like to fun my fingers through the needles and feel the sap and rough bark when I hold the tree while my husband tightens the screws.

Unpacking and hanging the ornaments takes me back in time to when a good friend or relative gave me a particular ornament. Or when my husband and I picked out ornaments together. And then there are my Woolworth’s painted wooden ornaments that I bought when I had very little money. I saved those ornaments to remind me of harder times, although I no longer tie crayons on the branches with bright red bows or drape garlands of hand strung cranberries on the branches. Now I have more ornaments than I can hang on a six- or seven-foot tree.

The lights and the lighted angel on top are what turns each year’s Christmas tree into a magical symbol of the holiday. So when we packed up the ornaments and pulled down the lights and angel yesterday, I was sad that Christmas has ended. The magic for this year is over.

But the today I did something I have not done before. I sawed off the balsam tree’s branches and spread them throughout my garden in our backyard. Now a tree will nourish the garden for the spring. Except for the trunk, the tree was not wasted. Somehow that makes the magic of Christmas last several months longer.