As Christmas trees were incinerated in a giant bonfire in Ogden Dunes, Daina Lattimer and her daughter Vaiva Lattimer, 11, watched. “We were waiting for our tree to scream,” Daina said.
Vaiva has watched the Twelfth Night ceremony every year, marking the 12th day of Christmas, Epiphany, commemorating when the wise men are said to have arrived in Bethlehem to greet the baby Jesus.
The Ogden Dunes Fire Department, which lit the fire and extinguished it, has done it for years.
Assistant Chief Luke Brennan has lived in the town for 50 years and remembers seeing the bonfires as a kid. “It’s a tradition from long ago that’s been forgotten,” he said, but Ogden Dunes revived the tradition years ago.
Ogden Dunes residents set out their Christmas trees to be gathered by the street department, which stacks them in an isolated area to be ignited by the fire department on Jan. 6 each year.
Fire department chaplain Lowell Black presided over the ceremony for the first time Monday. “Thankfully, we got these Christmas trees out of the house before they became a fire hazard,” he said.
Black walked the crowd through the significance of Epiphany. “That’s a fancy word for saying that’s when we recognize the wise men came to Bethlehem,” he said. They carried gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the baby Jesus. Frankincense and myrrh are herbs burned to cover the stench of death.
The holy family sold the gifts when they fled Bethlehem for Egypt to escape King Herod’s wrath, Black said.
According to Christian tradition, the wise men arrived in Jerusalem, where they expected the child prophesied to be king of the Jews would be born. King Herod asked them to return to Jerusalem when they found the baby.
“He was such a nice guy that he killed his wife and son to keep them from being competitors,” Black said. Later, he sent his troops to kill male infants under age 2 in an attempt to protect his throne from Jesus, who he thought would rise up against him.
Not until Herod was dead did Jesus and his parents return to Israel.
In honor of the gifts the wise men brought, some people consider Jan. 6 a gift-giving occasion. “Our Hispanic friends are probably smarter than we tend to be” and keep up that tradition, Black said.
Phil Hargarten attended the ceremony with his daughter, Gretchen Bishop, and Bishop’s son Carson, 5.
Hargarten said he enjoyed the chaplain’s talk about the history of Epiphany. “It was a nice little ritual,” he said.
“Our tree’s in there,” Carson said. He told his cousin her tree had died.
“Tree heaven is made out of trees,” he said.
His mother was impressed by the enormous bonfire, “the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Vaiva Lattimer agreed. “I’ve seen it before. It was way more than I’ve been expecting,” she said.
That family’s tree was a Douglas fir, which holds heavy ornaments better, said her mother, Daina Lattimer.
The fir was rapidly incinerated as the flames reached it. “It was kind of scary,” Daina Lattimer said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
