The Tree

 

I’ve had a lot of Christmas trees in my long (and getting longer) life.  Several of them stand out, like the one from my childhood and the first tree Annie and I had after we got married.  All the ones we decorated with the kids as they were growing up are dear to me too.

But one in particular stands out in my memory, and not just because it cost $6,000.

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As I said, there was the only one I remember from my youth.  Mom bought an artificial tree that looked like it was made entirely of shiny silver tinsel.  Even then I thought it was gaudy and I didn’t particularly like it.  I mean, it was OK; it served as a place for Santa to place all our gifts.

Despite my opinion of the silver tree, our cat did like it.  Tiger would climb the trunk, bending the limbs downward as he ascended, and often toppling the whole tree before we could shoo him out.

I don’t blame Mom for the tree.  I mean, I’m sure it was fashionable at one point, probably when she bought it.  I know that real trees shed needles that find a more or less permanent home in carpeting like we had in our living room then.  But I’ve always been partial to natural trees.  I love the look, the smell, even the imperfections.

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Annie and I got married in August of 1983.  In December we took a hike out into the woods near our home in Brown’s Station, Missouri.  We searched through the many cedar trees that were filling an area that had been open pasture not too many years before.  We found a tree that was just the right height and full enough that it would support ornaments and, well, it just had that Christmas tree look.

Due to our meager finances, most of our decorations were hand-made that year and it became a tradition that my lovely wife and I have clung to in the years since.  We made chains of paper and strung popcorn on thread.  I carefully cut a star shape from a cereal box and wrapped it in aluminum foil.  That ugly creation of mine has topped every tree we’ve had for every Christmas since.

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In those 35 years, the number of ornaments has increased with every season.  Besides those Annie helped the boys make, there are many that our sons brought home from school.  Canning jar lids framing school pictures; handprints; popsicle stick Christmas trees; cotton ball snowmen; and many, many more.  Friends gave us some and others have origins that have been lost to the mists of time.

The boys got too grown up to make ornaments so, for a few years, the only new ones we got were some Annie bought to fill in the gaps left by decorations that were broken, taken home by their makers, or crumbled with advancing age.

Then along came the grandkids and a new generation of construction paper, cotton ball, and popsicle stick ornaments.

And each and every one is more valuable to us than all the gold in Fort Knox.

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All of those trees are remembered lovingly, but none of them is the one that stands out so vividly to me right now.

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Forty three years ago, Dad told me to get into the truck for a drive in the country one day.  He had been taking me out to look at farms so I wasn’t all that surprised when that’s what he had in mind, but this time turned out different.  We looked over the farm and, after we had hiked all around it, we climbed back into the truck and sat there.  He didn’t shift into gear, but asked my opinion of the place.

I told him I liked it.

He asked if I thought we should buy it.

I said I thought we should.

He said, “I done did.”

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I was surprised and overjoyed.  When we told Mom, she more surprised than I was.  One thing we were all in total agreement about; we all loved the farm.

The hill ground was covered with a grassy pasture dotted with cattle.  The bottom ground held five acres of alfalfa surrounded by soybeans.  One end of the property was bounded by a ditch that had been allowed to grow up with trees for three or four decades so it made a waterway full of adventure for a boy in his late teens.  The other end included about 10 acres of woods filled with squirrels for the hunting.

I would rise early every morning and drive out to the farm to feed and water the cattle.  While they ate, I’d sit in the barn loft and watch the big beasts gathered around the piles of hay I’d tossed out for them.

In the evenings after Mom and Dad got home from work somebody would go back out to the farm.  Often we three would meet out there and sit on the fence while one of us “held the hose” to fill up the old bath tubs we used as watering troughs for the cattle.

I know that sounds fairly humdrum to most people, but it wasn’t to me.  Up until that time my parents had poured themselves into their work and we all ignored each other once we got home.  Those months after we bought the farm marked a change in our lives.  I’d always loved my parents, but during that time we grew closer than we ever had before.  That time sitting on the fence was time spent talking and getting to know each other.

It was a good time, a time worth more than all the money in the world.

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As that first Christmas drew near, we walked out into the woods across the gravel road and found a little cedar tree.  There were not a lot of the fragrant trees on the farm so there wasn’t much to choose from, but we found one about five feet tall.  It was a little scraggly and sparsely branched and lop-sided…and absolutely beautiful.  Mom and Dad showed me how they had decorated trees with strings of popcorn and paper chains when they were kids and we spent more time talking and getting to know each other.

At one point Mom casually mentioned that we had put $6,000 into the farm so far and hadn’t realized any income from it.  She thought for a minute and added, “except this tree.”

We all agreed that it was profit enough for us.

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Last year I had the idea to take all the grandkids out to cut a tree off the farm when they got home for Christmas.  Everyone was excited to do that but, when the day rolled around, it was pouring rain and just too nasty to take a trailer load of little people out to the tree I’d picked out.

The tree got a reprieve.  Some of the boys cut a tree and brought it back to the house where the grandkids helped decorate it.

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This year that tree looks even better and I want to try it again.  Annie told me that she had picked out a backup tree just in case the weather again didn’t cooperate.  I asked which one and she pointed across the road to a little cedar growing there.

I got quiet as I looked it over so Annie asked if it was OK.  I cleared my throat and said, “It’s perfect.”

I couldn’t say anything else.  My mind had gone back over those 43 years to the time when Mom and Dad and I had walked to almost exactly the same spot and cut a tree for that first Christmas after we bought our farm.

Mom and Dad and I, Granny Corn, and my sisters and their families had celebrated together and the love and Christmas spirit had filled us.

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Dad and Granny Corn are gone now, and I miss them.  My sisters won’t be here because they will be celebrating with their own families but most of my sons and their growing families will be here.  My 92 year old Mom can’t see and struggles to walk, but she will celebrate with us just as we did 43 years ago around that little cedar tree.

It was a little scraggly and sparsely branched and lop-sided, and absolutely beautiful…

…and worth way more than the $6,000 it cost us.

 

Merry Christmas

 

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(below) We ended up using the tree I had planned to use last year so it was the back-up that got a reprieve this year.  Only two of our sons were able to be here when we cut the cedar so the operation wasn’t as crowded as it usually is but, true to form, the Matthews gang had fun, joking and playing.  All but one son was able to come in during the weekend we had chosen to celebrate so, despite missing J.B. and his family, we managed to have a great time.  The star you see Bobby, his son Richard, and Travis putting on top is the one I made for Annie’s and my first Christmas as a married couple, 35 years  (and six sons) ago.  We haven’t had a tree in all these years that it hasn’t sat atop.  Most of the ornaments that our kids made have gone home with them since they moved on, but many on our tree now are from our grandkids.