Trees

My last post was a little dark and vulnerable. I couldn't think of any way to show personally what a Wonderful Counselor we have in Jesus without sharing some of my own struggles. I do apologize if it was a bit too dark for some.

I've been remembering some of the lighter moments the Christmas Season would bring to our family. There were two seasons where the dynamic of our family was consistently a little lighter. One was our summer camping trips to the Middle Fork of the Yuba River. The other was Christmas, especially some of the stories surrounding our ongoing quest for the perfect Christmas tree.

Our earliest years involved purchasing a tree from a gas station. Back in those days proprietors of fueling stations would stock some Christmas trees and I remember as a very little guy the excitement of finally stopping at a station and choosing just the right tree.

A few years later my dad had a co-worker, Swede Nelson who lived on some property that had some promising trees. Dad and I, and then later we'd include my younger sister Elizabeth would load up our old Powell station wagon or a few years later the truck/camper my folks owned and drive out to Swede's place. He had a couple boys so we kids would all hop in the back of Swede's pick-up and drive up into the hills where the promising trees could be found. It would always seem like such a magical journey.

Dad was a bit fussy about finding just the right tree so it would take us some time. We'd also look for a tree for my grandparents who lived nearby in Nevada City. Of course untrimmed trees are not often as perfect as Dad would like but he'd find something that would come close. Eventually two decent trees were found and the Nelson's would find their tree so we'd load them in the back of the pick-up and we kids would squeeze in around our trees excited for this important aspect of the season. Christmas was on it's way!

Dad often would get our tree home, put in the old red metal stand and the would stand back and look at it. More often than not, there were holes that needed a branch grafted in so Dad would trim a lower branch, drill a hole where it was needed and wire it in. We could then begin the joyous work of trimming the tree. Dad would put on the lights and then we would all pitch in and start hanging the collection of ornaments. After all the ornaments were hung then we started the job of hanging the silver tinsel, strand by strand. We were taught to be very meticulous making sure each branch was draped gracefully with cascading silver strands that reflected our collection of colored lights. Some of our lights were the ones that, once heated up, would flash on and off at individual intervals. It was glorious!

Mom never liked taking down the tree. Often it was mid to late January before we would finally take it down along with all the other trimmings that decorated our little home. One year in particular, I recall it was close to Valentine's Day before the tree came down. Of course, by then it was so dry it was barely green anymore, but she didn't care. I think it always depressed her a little to finally say good-bye to Christmas.

Mom's desire for a tree that would stay fresh longer got her into a bit of trouble one year. It was Christmas 1973. My older sister and I had moved to San Francisco so when I came home a day or so before Christmas I was startled to find a completely dead, brown tree. Mom just giggled a little bit and told me her tale.

Evidently she'd been watching the Dinah Shore talk show one morning. She'd had some guy who was an expert gardener, the Green Gardener is who I think it was. He'd given a recipe to help preserve and keep fresh cut Christmas Trees. Mom got so excited she immediately went into the kitchen and whipped up a batch of whatever it was he'd said to use, cooking it a bit. She said the tree was still outside so she rushed out and dumped into the pan in the stand her hot concoction. Well, you can guess what happened. She'd not heard the whole set of instructions and didn't let the concoction cool down. It quickly killed the tree. I'm not sure she had the heart to tell Dad what had happened so they put it up anyway in hopes it would make it through a shortened Christmas Tree season, but frankly, it wasn't going to make it.

The next day I bundled up my little sister and we took a hike down the hill from our house, across highway 49 and up the ridge on the other side to look for anything resembling a Christmas Tree. Fortunately, we found a beautiful little cedar I cut down. Now poaching trees is NOT something you should do and so I sent my sister on ahead to make sure no cars were coming along the highway so I could make a mad dash across the road and up the hill  out of sight of anyone driving along the road. By the time we'd gotten home, Dad had completely stripped the dead tree and was waiting for us with whatever we could find.  It was the only cedar tree we ever had. Cedars have rather limp limbs that droop precariously with the weight of ornaments, but we didn't care, it was much better looking than the brown stick of a tree it replaced. We often laughed about the year Mom killed the tree.

Years later, after the first five years of marriage, Gail and I moved to Minnesota. Our first Christmas we went with friends to a tree farm and cut a beautiful tree. It was a different variety than we were use to with very short, sharp needles. We weren't sure how we would keep our crawling, adventurous daughter from the tree, but after her first attempt at reaching for the beautiful ornaments she discovered how sharp those needles were on her delicate hands. One attempt was all it took for her to know the tree would hurt her and she never tried to reach into it again.

A few years later we were preparing for a special Christmas, my folks were coming for a visit. As was our custom, a few weeks before their arrival, we cut a beautiful blue spruce that fit our little condo perfectly, tall enough, but not too wide. What we didn't know was the variety we'd selected had a tendency to dry out fairly quickly and drop needles. By Christmas Eve it was dropping them at a sickening rate. Heavier ornaments would slide down branches any time anyone walked by and you could hear the needles fall on the presents beneath it.

I'd had enough of it so I bundled up my mother and the two of us went in search of another tree with strict instructions from my wife to not get one that was too wide. Well, we ended up at a KMart with a pitiful collection of trees, most laying on their sides, dejected trees waiting for a home late in the season. We found what we thought would work and loaded it in my Toyota Celica for the ride home. What we didn't realize was the shape we thought was fairly compact was due largely from the fact it was frozen into a tight pyramid. By the time we got it in our compact living room it thawed and just about filled half our living room. Gail was not particularly happy but Mom and I just giggled as we decorated the thawing tree.

After we moved back to California we'd do the tree expedition again up into the Sierra Foothills about 50 miles from home. We'd often go with our friends the Blodgers and make a day of it looking for the perfect tree. Those are good memories. Eventually the kids got tired of going with Dad to look, I tend to be particular about finding a tall, perfect tree. The last year that Charlie went with me we found a beautiful tree, but it was just slightly shorter than our car. It was one of those years I flocked the tree so I stood it up in the stand in the driveway, flocked it with several cans of snow and brought it into the house. One problem, to get the lights and ornaments on the top I had to stand on the tip top of our 8' ladder on my toes, lean out with one hand on a wall and sort of toss the lights and ornaments on the upper branches. It sort of drove Gail nuts watching me do this, but it was beautiful when done.

My last year of cutting a tree was a solo effort on my part. It was one of those cold drizzly days where it was almost snowing. Being fussy for just the right tree meant time and effort tromping around tree farms. By the time I found the right tree, paid for it and loaded it my holybluemazda, the jeans I was wearing were completely soaked and I was freezing cold for the 50 mile drive home. No problem I thought. I pulled over onto a secluded dirt road, took my pants off, cranked up the heater and drove home in my underwear.

I know my goal in writing here is to find transcendence in the ordinary things of life. Frankly, I'm not finding that in writing this, but I love the memories I have connected with our adventures with finding the perfect Christmas tree. Memories are precious things and we can find joy and even a hint of transcendence in remembering our happy memories during this Advent season. Maybe, just maybe revisiting our own personal memories of past Advent seasons we can recapture again the importance of being a child, after all, unless we become like children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

Oh yes, the last Christmas before my dad passed away we were retelling the story of going out with Swede Nelson to cut a tree. My dad, with a twinkle in his eye confessed for the first time to any of us that we had been poaching trees all those years! Suddenly something he always would do before leaving the Nelson's made sense. He would always cover up the trees with an old bedspread he would bring along, even when we would load the trees into the back of the camper. I always thought it was just to keep the needles from making a mess but it was to hid our pilfered trees!