When I was growing up in England we always had a really big Christmas tree. One of the photos of me as a baby was taken during my first Christmas, propped up underneath the Christmas tree in our cottage, which was on the farm in rural Kent where both my parents worked. My mother was the bookkeeper, and Dad was in charge of livestock. The farm was on a massive estate that was part of what was then “Forestry Commission” land, owned by the Crown, though the farms were leased to men whose families had worked that land for generations. So, when it came to Christmas, my dad was allowed to go into the adjacent pine plantation and choose a tree. Well, I think he was allowed to take a tree—I have a feeling it was a case of the farmer turning a blind eye. However, for some years after we left that house and my parents no longer worked on the farm, my father still wanted his pick of the trees.
A few days before Christmas, just after my brother and I had gone to bed, I would hear him leave the house with the dog at heel. I would stay awake for hours, listening until he returned, his footfall heavy on the path that ran alongside our house, perhaps crunching through a fresh fall of snow. I’d hear the shed door creak, and then as Dad went into the kitchen, opening and closing the back door, a brief shaft of light crossed ceiling of the bedroom I shared with my brother. And then all was quiet. I knew we had our Christmas tree.
One year my brother and I lobbied to go along with Dad to choose the tree. At dusk, wrapped up in our warm woolen duffel coats, scarves, and thick socks inside our Wellington boots—and plastic bags over the socks because our boots leaked—we set off with the dog. It was some miles across frosty fields until we reached the conifer plantation. As we clambered over stiles and pushed back brambles, Dad would occasionally stop, telling us to look up at the sky, where he would point out the constellations. First we had to identify the north star, because Dad maintained that, “When you can find your north star, you can find your whole universe.”
As soon as we reached the pine plantation, we walked up and down the rows in moonlight, my father with his keen eye looking at one tree after another, searching for just the right one—over 7 ft with a good spread of thick branches. Then he found it. I knelt down to hold back the lower branches while Dad sawed away at the trunk, and as it came free, my six-year-old brother whooped and yelled, “We’ve got it, Dad!” I wrestled him to the ground, my hand over his mouth. “Shhhh, you idiot!” I warned. But Dad had quickly wrapped the tree in sackcloth and rope, ready for the long walk home with our dog leading the way.
Later, red-cheeked as Mum brought in mugs of hot cocoa, we held thick slices of bread on long-handled toasting forks over the drawing room fire, while Dad positioned the tree ready for us to decorate. Truly, it was a miracle we weren’t all jettisoned into outer space, given the number of lights my father wound around the tree, the window and the room, with wires attached to a collection of plugs jury-rigged to one ancient electrical outlet. It was joyous—our Christmas had begun.
I have not decorated a tree since without remembering our jaunt into the pine forest on a freezing cold night to choose that tree, and looking up into the dark sky to find the north star—and with it my whole universe.
Our tree always came down on January 6th—the 12th day of Christmas, and never a day before, because my mother was superstitious and it’s unlucky to take down the tree a day earlier or later. But our tree adventure didn’t end there, because we took it into the garden and decorated it with small cubes of bread and various bits of leftover food. According to my mother it was , “So the birds can have their Christmas.” We would watch from the window as all manner of avian life descended upon that tree for their holiday treats.
Several years ago I went with my brother to a Christmas tree farm to choose trees for our respective homes here in California. “I like coming to this farm,” he said. “You can pick your own tree and cut it down yourself.” And as we knelt by the tree, with me holding back the lower branches while my brother took his saw to the trunk, we began to giggle. No words were spoken, but we were both remembering that cold, moonlit evening long ago when I had to take him down, burying him in snow until he stopped yelling that we had our perfect tree.
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