A Lifetime of Christmas Trees

Characteristic Christmas scene
in the town where I grew up.

I grew up in a small, snow-bound rural town where obtaining a Christmas tree required direct action. My two older brothers would venture with a saw and a sled into the nearby countryside and come home with a fresh sacrificial conifer as their prize. As a result, a resinous scent filled our modest Cape Cod home for the duration of the holidays.

Colorfully wrapped presents mysteriously appeared under the tree in the days prior to Christmas Eve. I have no idea where my parents hid my gifts in our small house. I have even less idea where they found the money for them. It didn't matter to me at that time: I was, by all accounts, a very happy child and happiest of all after Midnight Mass, when we could open the presents. Serenity and joy and certainty characterized Christmas for me in those sheltered times.

Urban Christmas Tree search
(photo: businessinsider.com)

When my family moved to New York, we continued the tradition of the tree. However, the feeling had changed: my two brothers, who are nine and ten years older than I am, had gotten married and felt physically and psychically far away. The boyish adventure of finding a Christmas tree did not exist in Queens. Trees were sold on street corners. The ritual of gift giving remained intact, but the sense of family and community had been shattered. The low point came during one of my teenage years, when my parents bought a midget artificial tree. I had grown up with real trees, and the idea of a fake tree went completely against my grain. The artificial tree's size seemed insulting. This wasn't Christmas. To my parents' credit, they didn't repeat the experiment while I lived with them.

After I graduated from college, I packed and unpacked in a lot of places, none of which ever quite felt like home and none of which included a Christmas tree in its history. The spell was broken, briefly, only to resume its grip.  I might not have ever had a tree again, except for my wife Amy's intervention. At the time, we were in the first stages of getting serious about loving each other. That meant we were becoming increasingly inseparable, especially during holidays. Well, my wife grew up without a Christmas tree and wanted one. She was living in a studio apartment and adding a full-blown tree was more challenge than the space could handle. My resourceful bride-to-be would not be denied. She had a rubber plant, which she promptly decorated with earrings, strands of costume beads, and lights. It was a crazy, yet completely endearing sight. I could see it from an adjacent parking lot at night and it filled me with a happiness I had not felt in a generation.

Tim and the Artificial Christmas Tree, circa 2012

Five years ago, I finally crossed a psychological Rubicon and bought an artificial tree. My wife was allergic to whatever real trees put into the air, and I dreaded the work of dragging a tree home and putting it in our awkward, ancient tree stand. Amy and I somehow found the money to purchase a fake tree at the height of the 2008 financial disaster. Even though the price was very much in our favor, I wondered if the tree would become a symbol of untimely financial folly. (It didn't.) I liked the tree and could walk away from needing to possess a physical icon to resurrect my childhood sentiment. Thanks to love, I could accept a practical alternative while cherishing all that was -- and remains -- wonderful about Christmas.