譯/許鵬飛 審訂/叢盧

“Little full,” says Clark Griswold as the untethered branches of the family Christmas tree smash the windows of his living room.Soon the tree is ignited by a rogue cigar—though not before a cat has been electrocuted by its lights.A squirrel jumps out of the replacement tree, running amok and making a grandmother faint.

“有點(diǎn)兒放不下了?！笨死恕じ窭锼刮譅柕抡f，家中圣誕樹的枝干在解開捆繩時(shí)一下子四散，戳破了客廳窗戶。很快，一支雪茄莫名點(diǎn)著了這棵樹——而樹上的燈剛剛電死了一只貓。一只松鼠從換了的圣誕樹里蹦出來，橫沖直撞，嚇暈了一位老祖母。

2There is a lot of wisdom in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, not least about Christmas trees.Bringing the country into the home, they are a topsyturvy symbol of the carnivalesque holiday—when work is suspended, adults act like children, and everyone eats and drinks too much while pretending to get along.At the same time the Christmas tree suggests the reverse: not chaos but order, the taming of the outside world,the safety of domesticity.Think of the providential Christmas-tree bauble in which Macaulay Culkin spies the reflection of the burglars in Home Alone.

2電影《瘋狂圣誕假期》中有很多笑點(diǎn)，關(guān)于圣誕樹的尤其多。圣誕樹指引全國民眾歸家，成了狂歡假日顛三倒四的象征——圣誕期間，工作丟在一旁，大人都像小孩，大家盡情吃喝，裝作和樂融融。同時(shí)，圣誕樹也代表著相反的一面：不是混亂，而是秩序，外界一片祥和，家中安寧舒適。想想《小鬼當(dāng)家》中麥考利·卡爾金從圣誕樹彩球上發(fā)現(xiàn)了竊賊的影子，真是天意。

3The Christmas tree is at once rudimentary and magical.Its genius lies in a simple trick of out-of-placeness—a tree in the house!—combined with an inviting blankness.To find meaning in a tree, you must suspend disbelief; and once you do, it can, like many popular rituals, mean whatever you want it to.The spruce donated every year by Oslo to London, and displayed in Trafalgar Square, conveys gratitude for wartime solidarity.America’s first “National Christmas Tree”, illuminated by Calvin Coolidge in Washington in 1923, was a token of progress and advertisement for electric power.This flexibility has helped the Christmas tree conquer even non-Christian parts of the world—making it, in turn, an emblem of globalisation.

3圣誕樹既粗陋又神奇。它的妙處在于搞了個(gè)簡單的錯(cuò)位把戲——房子里放了棵樹！——還留下大片空白引人遐思。要想尋找一棵樹的意義，就得放下質(zhì)疑；只要心誠，這棵樹就能像許多頗受歡迎的儀式一般被賦予任何期待的含義。挪威首都奧斯陸每年都會(huì)向英國首都倫敦捐贈(zèng)一棵云杉，放在特拉法加廣場展出，以致謝戰(zhàn)時(shí)英國給予的支持。美國的第一棵“國家圣誕樹”由卡爾文·柯立芝于1923 年在華盛頓點(diǎn)亮，以象征進(jìn)步、宣傳電力。圣誕樹寓意多變，因而得以“征服”世界上許多非基督教國家和地區(qū)——而這也讓它成為全球化的一個(gè)象征。

4Its branches are hung with myths:that in the eighth century St Boniface felled an oak to disrupt a human sacrifice, a Christmas fir rising in its place;or that, awed by the stars, Martin Luther first adorned a Christmas tree with candles.As Judith Flanders explains in Christmas: A History, the concept probably derived from the “paradise tree”that appeared in medieval plays, springing into life of its own in 15th-century Germany, adopted first by guilds, then toffs and finally the masses.German immigrants transplanted the tree to America, albeit probably not the Hessian mercenaries who fought for the crown in the revolutionary war.Legend has it that they were too busy decorating their trees to stop George Washington crossing the Delaware in 1776.

4圣誕樹的枝條綴滿了神話傳說：據(jù)傳，公元8 世紀(jì)時(shí)，英國傳教士圣卜尼法斯赴德傳教，砍倒一棵橡樹，阻止了當(dāng)?shù)禺惤掏竭M(jìn)行人祭，后來橡樹所在之處長出一棵冷杉，成為了后來的圣誕樹；也有記載說，馬丁·路德對(duì)繁星充滿敬畏，成為用蠟燭裝點(diǎn)圣誕樹的第一人。而朱迪絲·弗蘭德斯在《圣誕節(jié)：一部歷史》中寫道，圣誕樹大約源于中世紀(jì)戲劇中出現(xiàn)的“天堂樹”，盛行于15 世紀(jì)的德國，這一概念最先為行會(huì)組織采納，然后是富裕階級(jí)，最后才漸漸為普羅大眾接受。德國移民將圣誕樹文化移植到了美國，這與獨(dú)立戰(zhàn)爭中服務(wù)于英國王室的黑森傭兵大約無涉。有傳聞?wù)f，1776 年，他們是因?yàn)槊τ谘b飾圣誕樹，才沒能阻止喬治·華盛頓渡過特拉華河。

5Private myths encircle individual trees like the rings inside a trunk.Each is a tribute to past, sometimes forgotten times (where did that toucan ornament come from?) and a bridge between now and then.Observing one inThe Christmas Tree, Charles Dickens reflected on “the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life”.Amid the foliage “Christmas associations cluster thick”, Dickens wrote, including“the softened music in the night, ever unalterable”.

5神秘的傳說圍繞一棵棵圣誕樹展開，就像樹干內(nèi)一圈圈的年輪。每個(gè)傳說都在致敬過去，有時(shí)是被人遺忘的過去（比如巨嘴鳥裝飾源自哪里？），同時(shí)也是溝通過往和現(xiàn)在的橋梁。就像查爾斯·狄更斯在《圣誕樹》一文中所描繪的，“圣誕樹的枝條承載了我們對(duì)幼時(shí)圣誕節(jié)的回憶，在回憶的積淀中我們步入了現(xiàn)實(shí)生活”。在狄更斯筆下，樹葉叢生之處“圣誕記憶聯(lián)翩浮現(xiàn)”，包括“夜晚流淌的輕柔音樂，恒久不變”。

6Amid all the subjectivity, though,some meanings are inescapable.Like the evergreen boughs used in Druid,Roman and Egyptian rites, the Christmas tree connotes rebirth and fertility.When, in Christmas Tree, Lady Gaga sang “Light me up, put me on top” and“My Christmas tree’s delicious”, she was only making this link explicit.But often the regeneration is less literal.First erected in the early 1930s, the tree at Rockefeller Centre in New York became a sign of hope amid the Depression.Jimmy Stewart and his family stand beside their Christmas tree at the rapturous climax of It’s A Wonderful Life.“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings”, says his daughter as an ornament on the tree tinkles.

6盡管有許多主觀解讀，但有些含義不可忽視。就像德魯伊、羅馬和埃及的儀式中使用的常青樹一樣，圣誕樹寓意重生和多產(chǎn)。Lady Gaga 在《圣誕樹》中唱道“將我點(diǎn)亮，高放頂端”和“我的圣誕樹如此美味”，明確了這種聯(lián)系。但重生并非如此停留在字面意義上。紐約洛克菲勒中心于20世紀(jì)30 年代初首次豎立了一棵圣誕樹，它成為大蕭條時(shí)期希望的象征。電影《生活多美好》的高潮處，吉米·史都華和家人站在自家圣誕樹旁；隨著樹上的裝飾叮當(dāng)作響，他的女兒說：“每當(dāng)鈴聲響起，就有一個(gè)天使得到了翅膀?！?/p>

7Yet a tension runs through stories and songs about the Christmas tree—over whether or not it wants to be one.Stevie Wonder’sOne Little Christmas Treeis“standing alone/waiting for someone to come by” and take it home.But other,illusionless bards know what happens after a tree is uprooted.Hans Christian Andersen’sThe Fir-Treewinds up broken and burned.In season three ofFriends,Phoebe bemoans “innocent trees being cut down in their prime and their corpses grotesquely dressed in, like, tinsel and twinkly lights”.

7然而，圣誕樹相關(guān)的故事和歌曲中貫穿著一個(gè)懸念——這棵樹自己是否想成為一棵圣誕樹。史蒂維·旺德的《一棵小小圣誕樹》“獨(dú)自矗立/等人路過”，帶它回家。但其他稍乏幻想的詩人清楚樹木連根拔起后會(huì)怎么樣。漢斯·克里斯蒂安·安徒生的《冷杉樹》最終被砍碎燒毀?！独嫌延洝返谌局?，菲比則哀嘆“無辜的樹木在壯年時(shí)被砍倒，殘肢裝飾得怪模怪樣，還掛上了金屬絲和彩燈串”。

8Even as they symbolise eternal life,Christmas trees are ornaments at their own funerals.The shedding of their needles is a countdown to the end of the holiday, the expiry of the magic that turned a tree into something more,and—especially in a time of climate emergency—the end of other things besides.“Time is always the boss,”crooned Bulat Okudzhava, a Soviet chanteur, in his song about ayolka,the New Year tree that supplanted the Christmas kind in the Soviet Union.“In haste you’re taken down from the cross /And there will be no resurrection.”

8盡管圣誕樹象征永生，卻成為自己葬禮上的裝飾品。針葉一根根掉落，是假期結(jié)束的倒計(jì)時(shí)；魔法耗盡，讓一棵樹生出了其他含義——尤其在氣候劇變之時(shí)——其他事物也隨之結(jié)束?！皶r(shí)間始終掌控一切?！碧K聯(lián)歌手布拉特·奧庫賈瓦在一首講新年樹（在蘇聯(lián)相當(dāng)于西方的圣誕樹）的歌曲中低聲吟唱，“匆忙中你被從十字架上拉下/從此再無復(fù)活?！?/p>

9Happy Christmas! ■

9圣誕快樂！ □