The Taking of the Tree

I once read a story about a cowboy that went out and cut his own Christmas tree down every December 21st on the winter solstice. It was called “The taking of the tree”. In this story, the cowboy spoke of this annual event like it was a spiritual thing. He would search for the perfect tree, cut it down around sunset, and drag it to his cabin in the woods. There he would decorate it and begin to celebrate the season of Christmas.

In some ways, we are all a little like that cowboy. We search for our perfect tree. We struggle with the logistics of getting it home, and then we kick off our Christmas season by trimming it. When I was little, my family would get a nice Scotch pine tree from the parking lot of the Catholic Church in town. We would stuff the tree in the trunk of the car in order to get it home. We would then have to cut off a chunk of the bottom with a long bladed handsaw. You had to wrestle with the tree and try and balance it on a concrete step in order to cut it. Then we would place the tree in a bucket of hot water in the garage until it was time to bring it in and decorate it.

To this day, every time I catch a whiff of a Scotch pine though, it immediately brings me back to my grade school days at Crestwood Elementary School in Northbrook, Illinois. During the holiday season, Christmas trees and wreaths were actually delivered to our school. Classroom by classroom and floor by floor, the smell wafted up through the school as the janitor distributed them. That smell was something. It smelled like Christmas.

Real trees were eventually replaced in our house by a fake tree. My mother had had enough of the left over needles from the tree getting stuck in out wool carpeting. She also was not fond of the needles clogging up the hose on the vacuum back then. So we learned to live with an artificial tree that resided in the attic for 11 months of the year. As the fake tree patiently waited to come alive each year, I would bug my mom to get the tree down so we could decorate it; especially after “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired. The fake tree did not smell and was kind of lame, but we made do.

Heading into my high school years, the fake tree was once again replaced by a real tree. Pier pressure was the culprit this time. It seemed everyone in the neighborhood was trying to see who could get the best tree each year. It was like a contest. Scotch pine trees were a thing of the past as the Douglas fir and Frasier fir were the “it” trees of the day. They were much fuller and much more expensive. Their smell didn’t seem to last as long though as the Scotch pines.

As I got older, my homes had higher ceilings, thus the need for taller Christmas trees. The trees were in the ten foot plus range and they were heavy. Luckily, the service in the tree lots increased along with the price of the trees. At local nurseries here in Colorado, the people are usually very friendly and will come down on the price if you ask them. They will also cut a fresh slice off the bottom of the tree with a chainsaw, bag up your tree, and tie it down on your vehicle.

So as you head out this year to find your perfect tree, remember your trees of Christmas past. May they smell like the Scotch pines of my youth.