On Saturday we went to get our Christmas tree. At least the tree is one item that hasn’t yet been denatured to become a “holiday” tree, although I heard one TV weatherman awkwardly give the phrase a try. So we went to get our Christmas tree, and we did it right. We went out to the West Virginia border, about an hour west of here, tramped out into the snow, and cut one down ourselves. Nothing makes you feel the spirit of the season more than getting cold and wet while lugging your tree down from the hills. Oh sure, you can go to a lot and get a tree that was cut two weeks ago and shipped in from somewhere three states away. I’ve done just that on many occasions when time or the weather just didn’t permit the big expedition of my dreams. But when I have the time and opportunity, I really love doing it the hard way.
When I looked at my husband across the breakfast table and told him “today’s the day,” I could see him envisioning a quick trip to the tree lot at a nearby shopping plaza. “Oh, no,” I told him. “I really want to go cut one down this year.” He thought about it for a second, then gave in gracefully. So we gathered up saw and rope, dressed in warm old clothes and set out. Living in a major metropolis as we do, we’re closer to fine restaurants and museums than to tree farms, so we had a ways to go. But the drive was pleasant, and the scenery couldn’t be beat since we’d had a light snowfall two days before and the ground was still white. White Christmases are a rarity for us in Virginia. As we drove west we counted hawks, one of my favorite pastimes on a country drive. We also counted the new housing developments. New subdivisions are something one can’t help but notice driving through Loudoun County, which has had double digit population growth every year for a decade now.
At last we arrived at the tree farm, which is on a gentle slope backed up to a ridge. We picked up a map from a friendly worker in the small parking lot to help us find our preferred species (no pines for us, thank you) and we set out up the hillside and into the trees. Lots of other families were roaming the plots of trees as well. Dogs, children, parents were all around us. “What about this one?” “No, Dad, over here!” There were acres of trees to choose from but it took no more than five minutes for us to latch onto The Tree. We made a half-hearted effort to look at others, but we kept coming back to the first one. At one point we came upon another we thought we liked just as well, only to realize it was actually the very same tree and we’d walked around in a circle. We took that as a sign and settled down to cut our choice. We carried it over to the barn to pay and shortly afterwards it was trussed and tied up on top of the car for the drive home.
Now it stands in our living room, a little piece of wildness. I know lots of people happily do without a live Christmas tree. I have to admit, real trees are messy, inconvenient and impractical. Making room for one requires complex re-arrangement of our furniture every year. But I wouldn’t miss having one for the world. It’s a piece of magic carried into our house for a few weeks of the year. The smell, the needles and the adventure of finding it all appeal directly to some atavistic part of my spirit. I prefer not to rationalize, but to surrender to the tradition. We could only do something so irrational for the joy of it.
