Cutting Your First Christmas Tree

 

Each year I put up a fake tree way before Christmas and after Thanksgiving we go get a real tree somewhere around our house.  This year we have family from out of the country and they have never cut a Christmas tree so we asked if they wanted to come and cut a Christmas tree this year with us.  It was an enthusiastic yes from our cousin’s husband who lives in a large city and has never had the experience. 

            We live in the desert so we usually pick the tree that needs to be thinned or is flat on one side so it fits better against the wall in my kitchen.  This year my husband said he found one that would work so we all piled into the truck.  It was also their first time in the back of a pickup truck.  I was raised riding in the back of a pickup truck so I went back in my memory as a little girl and remembered the excitement of riding in the pickup and had to smile as they gleefully rode to where the tree was.

            We stopped in front of a steep hill where the tree sat at the top of it much to my dismay.  Usually we go on a level plane to find one but this year the “tree” was at the top of the steep rocky hill.  My daughter protested that we needed to go somewhere flat but we all climbed the hill, another one for my cousin who doesn’t hike in the city.  The tree that was picked was way too big for the kitchen so we found a smaller tree not too far from the first one.

            After instruction from my husband the cutting the tree experience began.  It was fun to watch my cousin’s husband who had donned a Daniel Boone hat he found at my house to cut his first live tree.  It made climbing the hill worthwhile to see the joy of such a simple thing at the Holidays. 

            They hauled the tree down the hill then went in the pickup back home and helped haul it in the house.  They had to leave the next morning so were unable to decorate it; I told them I would send them a picture of it when it had been decorated so they could see their tree.

            Since I was raised in the country I forget how fortunate I am to experience the things that others who come from a large city are unable to.  It doesn’t matter if you have an artificial or real tree, the meaning is the same.  It is a time to get together with the family and bring out the ornaments that you have collected throughout the year and decorate your tree.  At the top of my tree each year I get out a small angel, the skirt is made out of cardboard; I bought her at Woolworths with my young son when I was newly divorced.  I didn’t have very much money so I bought my little angel for my tree top.  Each year I get her out and ceremoniously put her on top to watch over the festivities throughout the season and think back to when I had less and how very blessed I have been since.

            Each ornament has a story, my tree doesn’t look like the cover of the fancy magazines but I think it is much more beautiful as it is the story of my life.  I tell my children and grandchildren the story of each ornament and it takes me through the good and bad times to where I am now.