Lost with Luis {Holiday Edition}: How my love for Christmas sprouted from a tree

It should come as no surprise to anybody that my love for Christmas has no limits.  To me, it’s the best time of the year and I truly think it stems from a childhood memory that is so deeply engraved into my heart, I will carry it with me forever. 

Here is why.

The year was 1989, I was five years old and my family lived in Florida.

Four years earlier, my parents made the difficult decision to immigrate to the United States for a better life.  My dad was studying hard at the University of Florida and while doing so, my mother was raising four rambunctious kids.  Life wasn’t easy.  We were happy, but the struggle was real and we were barely making ends meet.  I was too young to notice and my childhood was pure happiness, but there was no question that things were tight. 

Although we celebrated Christmas growing up, in our early years, my parents’ focus was trying to create a better life for us and therefore the focus on Christmas in the earlier years was minimal.

One cold Christmas Eve when I was 5 years old, I remember being so sad and crying to my mom because we didn’t have a Christmas tree. All we talked about at school was Christmas. As you can imagine at that age, school was filled with arts and crafts and Christmas was everywhere.  I loved it. All around me, I would see Christmas trees. They were in movies and cartoons or in the neighbourhoods I walked through. I wanted a tree badly, and we had nothing.  Forget the toys that most kids want at that age.  I wanted a bright, colourful tree.  I was devastated. I remember the memory clearly even though it was so long ago.  My mom felt it. She saw how much it meant to me.

Before the tears could dry on my cheeks, my mom was out the door and went to a nearby forest to get a shrub (think Charlie Brown Christmas tree, except this was a branch of a tree), brought it home and decorated it with knickknacks from around the house. I’m pretty sure there were forks dangling in there. From that day forward, she never allowed another Christmas to go by without having a tree.

This gesture is what Christmas is all about for me.  It’s a memory I hold fondly. No matter how crappy that small little shrub from the woods looked, to me, it meant the world.  Christmas isn’t about presents and money.  It’s about joy and happiness and letting that amazing feeling of nostalgia wrap you up in a tightly squeezed hug.  It’s about lending a hand to those in need.  It’s about loving one another and appreciating your family in friends. It’s about a mother’s unconditional love for her child. No matter how little we had back then, this simple gesture had a huge impact on my life as a child.

My love for Christmas sprouted from a tree…and my mother’s unconditional love.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!