A Tree to Connect Us

For the last seven or eight years, I’ve been forgoing the Christmas tree lot and building my own tree out of my books.

I call it the Bookmas Tree.

Above are a few pictures of the 2020 Bookmas tree.

I usually have some family members around to help out, but most of my family is in New York and I’m in LA. So, I booked it solo.

A week ago, I was thinking, “No one is going to be here. No family this year. Should I even bother?”

Yes.

Yes, to all the answers that are in your head right now.

It impacts me emotionally this year more than the years before. I haven’t asked my family directly, but I’m guessing they’re happy it’s here even though they can’t be.

This year I felt that I should share it with my friends, peers, and colleagues.

It’s comprised of a decent range of authors: Vonnegut, Capote, Amy Tan, Shakespeare, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Keats, George Carlin, John Cleese, Rebecca Walker, Michael More, Anne Tyler, Shel Silverstein, Anne Rice, Arthur Miller, Moliere, Susan Isaacs, Brian Greene, Hemmingway, Maurice Sendak, Dickenson and too many more to cover here. You get the idea. You want to know if someone is on the tree? Have suggestions for next year? Drop a line.

Subjects: Movies, woodworking, writing, science, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, self-help (sooo much self-help), history, mythology, guitar making, animation, running, music, beer, theater, baseball, travel, religion, politics. Again, you get the picture. (For a guy who really loves his food, there are surprisingly no cookbooks in there. I have plenty. Maybe I was afraid I would need them in my food-dependent isolation.)

You can make one of your own. It doesn't have to be big. (And you know you have the books.) The process of building the tree is just making circles with books one on top of the other, each a little smaller than the last. No science or engineering here. I do it freeform. Building takes longer than you’d think because you look at the books. Stacking books turns into a slideshow of life in volumes. All the books on the tree have been read or used at some time in the past, over…I don’t want to say how many years.

One section of note is the “Edward Edelson Memorial.” My dad passed in October of 2013. It may have been the first year I did the tree. He was a journalist and a science writer who worked for several New York newspapers over his career. He spent over 20 years as the Science Editor of the New York Daily News, met two or three presidents, won countless awards, and wrote books. Some were science-based. “Poisons in the Air” was one of the first books to come out addressing the problem of air pollution. But he also loved movies. That love was one of the greatest gifts he gave to me. He wrote a series of young adult books about them, starting with “Great Monsters of the Movies.” The Edward Edelson section of the tree has several of the titles.

The rest of my family is up there, too. They are there in the books they have read, the books they have gifted me over my life, books I have inherited from loved ones now gone, the subjects and stories the family has experienced on the pages together, and yet on our own. In that way, you’re probably up there too.

The printed page is an infinite space of possibility. I’m grateful for that.

I don’t usually share this sort of thing here, but there’s not a lot usual about this year. And I, for one, can use all the connections with my friends, family, and peers I can get.

Happy Holidays to all. Here’s to new beginnings and discovering our new connections in brighter times.