How To Place a Star on a Tree

2 December 2011Cherrie K

How many girls does it take to put a star on the tree?

Imagine, ladies and gentleman, the following scene in the Hope House common room: at seven thirty on the first day of December, a vertically challenged House Captain wobbles precariously on the shoulders of the Assistant House Captain, in order to plunk a golden star on a very, very tall Christmas tree—held upright by a string— with twenty Hopelings anxiously milling about, ready to catch the Captain if she falls. Then, imagine said House Captain—under severe pressure from the audience and personal frustrations with the limitations of her physique— reach, grab, and yank the tip the tree towards her, and by doing so, snapping said string which holds the tree upright, thus causing the Christmas tree to angrily lurch forward, and a room full of girls to scream in horror.

As a relatively young house on Campus, Hope has had comparatively more opportunities to plant traditions that will grow to last. As our numbers are slighter than any other house, every girl who wanders through our halls has a tremendous chance to leave a truly memorable mark on the history of our House, in some way or another. Sometimes, the mark is concrete or physical, (I do hear that some boarders have taken it upon themselves to scratch their names underneath desks or common room tables). Most of the time, however, the mark is intangible, and is kept alive through memory, through a current of history that is passed from individual to individual.

Traditions assist in creating these marks, and one that was newly crafted this year, was the interesting suggestion that the House Captain be the one to put the star on the tree. What a nice suggestion – unless your House Captain is only 5”5, and has to stretch to reach the top of the kitchen cupboard for a mug, never mind the peak of tall and poky tree straight from the forest!

You would think that once one reaches the golden Grade 12 one would be doing all sorts of grand and marvelous activities: learning the ‘real stuff’ in class, changing the lives of those around you with your insightful observations, suddenly discovering profound meaning in the nature of life — and you would be leaving your mark in history by developing into the mature and modern twenty-first century global citizen of the world, who disentangles controversial issues with collected calm and superior intellect.

I used to think that if I ever obtained a leadership position, I would be a sophisticated kind of leader: I would glide on the rough ground of the Earth with some sort of mature and sanguine grace; I would discipline my atrocious penmanship so that my E’s did not look like 3’s or B’s; I would have learned, by then, how to organize my numbers to calculate a sensible budget. I would be terribly successful in all aspects of my life –I’d swiftly balance and spend equal time in all the compartments of my life –academics, athletics, arts, university applications, acquaintances, teachers, right-now friends, childhood friends, long distance friends, family—with fair division and effortless confidence, and the mark that I would leave would be one of triumph.
But no! Just kidding! That person exists elsewhere, and is, unfortunately, not me. I am as I was in Grade 9: if it had a voice, the Christmas tree that I so rudely yanked from its place would most certainly poke me with its branches and snicker at my ‘grace’; I know that the Hope House Prefects will tell you that deciphering my scrawl on the Duty Schedule is a daily challenge, and at the end of every day, all the restless people in the neatly divided compartments of my life rise like Oliver Twist to ask—as they rightfully should– for more, more, more.

After all these flaws, you would think that the one task of crowning the Christmas tree would be a tranquil ceremony, a chance for redemption – but to my horror, the Christmas tree fiasco has now become my mark! Woe is me, ladies and gentleman, but in the end, life is life: sometimes the person that you wish you could be is as impossible a goal as catching the wind – or putting a star on a Christmas tree without ripping it from its place – and sometimes, Providence chooses when the spotlight swings to you on the grand stage, for better or for worse!

Cherrie K

Where Students Choose To Be