The Christmas Tree Tradition

The Christmas Tree Tradition: Update

UPDATE: This post is from 2010 and it popped up on my Facebook history feed today. It's about tradition. Something I realize we hold onto, particularly during the holidays, but also as our kids have gotten older. Time slips away before our eyes. We can't stop it or slow it. Building family traditions is our way of burning the memories of our time together into our brains. It's our way of remembering so that when the kids are grown with families of their own, we have stories of our lives together. Whether they make us laugh or cry, they are our link to each other and to our shared past. And that makes them special. 

This tradition is about the search for our Christmas tree, whether that tree is found in a forest or discovered in a tree lot. Our method might change depending on the year, but the story of how our family found the tree is the one we keep and remember.  

We have a tradition. Every year, we drag three frozen snot-nosed, crying children in negative degree weather to find our perfect Christmas tree. We gather around the tree, take a picture of it in its natural habitat, chop it down, sing a carol, then drag the bawling kids and the tree out of the forest and go home.

I should really stop saying we "chopped" a tree down because in reality what you do is kinda saw at it, which takes all of 2 to 5 minutes as there is nothing Paul Bunyan-like about practically pulling your Christmas tree out of the earth like a weed. These trees are not full. In fact, you see more trunk than branches.

But it's tradition, damn it. And I like it.

This year....we DROVE to a local garden store and BOUGHT a tree. A tall, beautiful, full tree. My husband was in love and content. No crying, frost-bitten, hungry kids to worry about. No skimpy, light-challenged tree to put up. Once decorated, it looked like the tree straight out of Clara's Nutcracker Prince dream.

Since the beauty went up, Sean just stares at it in wonder. His eyes literally light up if he just happens to glance at it. Is it pathetic to say the tree makes me jealous? What's wrong with our mountain tree? It might not be the prettiest tree ever, but it has wonderful family memories that come with it. Warm memories with the following highlights:

• The year I was pregnant and Sean had to carry a crying baby and the tree out of the forest.
• The year I got the stomach flu AFTER we had hiked a mile to find our tree. I crawled back to the car while Sean carried two crying babies and the tree out of the forest.
• The other year I was pregnant and Sean had to carry two crying babies and the tree out of the forest.
• The year we drove around for three hours looking for the group of other tree cutting revelers we were supposed to meet and never found. We all cried that year.
• And last year, after we found our tree, the sled strings broke so Sean had to hold and push three crying babies while I carried the tree out of the forest.

You see? These are the kind of touching, heart-warming memories I think about with our home grown, mountain trees. You really can't buy these kind of family bonding traditions with an imported tree.

I will admit that I have allowed myself to enjoy the fullness of our tree this year. It is refreshing that the branches can hold their own against the weight of the ornaments. I even began to let go of my favorite holiday tradition of dragging things out of the forest in favor of delightful family trips to the garden store every year.

Until last week. I noticed something odd. The tree looked, well, a little peaked. I looked closer and noticed that its once soft, green needles were hard, crunchy and brown. On the floor, dozens upon dozens of needles lay in their final resting place.

Our iconic Christmas tree was dead. Is dead. It's now a week later, and it continues to be dead. I can actually hear my no-heat LED lights sizzling as they lay on the crumbling branches.

Christmas morning is four whole days away.  I'm tempted to take down the tree tonight and tell the kids that the Elf on the Shelf did it. They might believe it. No they won't. So, I will keep the tree up until 12:01 AM on December 26.

And next year (triumphant bugle sound) tradition returns!!