It’s been many years since Lew’s tree farm was in its prime, but each year I continue to find the perfect tree for our living room. I expect tomorrow will be the day—or maybe if the weather is bad enough I’ll be able to put it off for another week. I like the noble firs with a little space between layers of branches. This allows the ornaments to hang instead of lay on top of a green cone.

I look for uniformity—a symmetrical tree. But this isn’t really a good representation of life. Life has a lot of randomness. I wouldn’t mind bringing home an ugly tree this year. We could try to make the decorations turn an unattractive tree into something beautiful. The ugly tree could represent things like the number of times my good intentions (and verbal commitments) have far exceeded my performance. It could represent the fact that once a person has had cancer there is a cloud of potential reoccurrence, or a high school freshman’s below capability performance in the first trimester, or a college freshman’s ragged adjustment to balancing academics, work, social life, and sleep. On the global scene the ugly tree would reflect hurricanes, earthquakes, hunger, and war.

But why would I want those things sitting in my living room until New Year’s Day? I’ll do my best to find a symmetrical tree.