The Smell of Maple and Light in the Darkness

Marc Dion
Thu, 04 Dec 2025 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

"You're a columnist," the wing-tipped, gray-haired inner voice bellows. "Write about politics. Write about impending disaster. The Federal Reserve Bank. Gunfire. Donald Trump."

"It's almost Christmas," my 8-year-old self says. "Write about Frosty the Snowman."

I'm happy to say the 8-year-old won. He should win sometimes, too. Anyone who is a serious adult all the time is worse than Christmas without the Christmas tree.
Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2025

"You're a columnist," the wing-tipped, gray-haired inner voice bellows. "Write about politics. Write about impending disaster. The Federal Reserve Bank. Gunfire. Donald Trump."

"It's almost Christmas," my 8-year-old self says. "Write about Frosty the Snowman."

I'm happy to say the 8-year-old won. He should win sometimes, too. Anyone who is a serious adult all the time is worse than Christmas without the Christmas tree.

I had the treeless Christmas last year. We'd just moved, and it seemed like way too much trouble to find the ornaments and the garland. Our two cats were thoroughly frightened of the new house, and I wasn't sleeping that well myself.

Oh, we still had Christmas dinner, and presents, and a small stuffed toy Santa on the end table where the little tree normally went.

But at night, maybe an hour before bed, I'd sit on the couch, smoking a pipe, and I'd say the same thing to my wife.

"I've had a Christmas tree all my life," I'd say, not blaming either one of us, just noting a sad and possibly age-related slippage of standards.

When I was in graduate school, I lived in a flophouse room that was infested with centipedes who thrived on the marijuana plants being raised by my next-door neighbor, and the bathroom at the end of the hall was so filthy I took showers wearing flip-flops. My girlfriend went to spend Christmas with her family in the country, and I ate a frozen burrito for Christmas dinner, and then drank a six-pack of cheap beer.

But I had a Christmas tree. It was cardboard, and it didn't have any lights, and it cost me $1, and I bought it out of a store that also sold cigarettes.

Things got better, and they don't for everyone, not reliably.

I'm a Christmas guy, and my personal Christmas season starts in October, toward the beginning of the month. I smoke maple-flavored pipe tobacco throughout the season, and I go to Christmas craft fairs, and I whistle carols, and I order sausage and cheese from a catalogue out of the Midwest.

My wife Deborah was out shopping a week ago, and she bought us the biggest Christmas tree we've ever had, and it has lights all over it, and shiny colored balls.

I'm not 8 years old. I'm 68 years old, and I've had Christmas among the centipedes, and now I have a smart wife, and two reasonably festive cats, and a tree with lights.

Me and Frosty the Snowman, we both smoke a pipe, and we both come back every year, no matter what searing heat melts us, leaving nothing behind but a pipe and a hat.

You don't have much time left, just a few weeks or so, and if you celebrate, you have to get it all in, all of Christmas, even if your all is very small.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called, "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle and iBooks.