On growing your own for Christmas

 Well, this year's Christmas tree is cut and up in the stand with lights on. Each year we cut one of the pines on our property it seems like this year's tree is even more of a Charlie Brown tree than the one from the year before. Most of the trees have come from a stand on the South  side of the drive, where they're crowded together, resulting in sparse branches. If we let them grow, they might become self thinning, but that would no doubt occur long after we've stop celebrating Christmas and peace on this earth.

a "Charlie Brown tree" for sure

Photo by J. Harrington

We pointed out, again, to the Better Half [BH] that the idea of cutting our own and using the "tree" stand she picked up at some rummage or yard sale is one of those Christmas traditions that's much better in the concept than in the reality. But then there's that Charlie Brown tree aspect. Today, after installing popsicle stick shims in the stand to help hold the tree upright, I declared that next year I'll be the one to pick out a tree. Let's hope it turns out better than this year's search for winterberry branches. The several stands that I know about were all bare and barren. BH saved the day by collecting some from a stand she had discovered. Maybe I should just make sure we measure the trunk diameter of the tree she selects next year. Anyhow, once again Christmas is coming to our home although COVID-19 is putting a bit of a damper on normal festivities, we're adapting and counting on an extra dose of Christmas spirits to help us through. The BH assures us that the tree will look much better when the decorations have "filled in" the bare spots.

We now have (electric) candles in the windows and a creche in the dining room. Decorations are finding their places on the piano, record cabinet, and other flat surfaces. Our Christmas lights, at least for this evening, will bring us cheer and merry merries. We may even see a few snow flurries drift out of our cloudy skies.

Christmas Trees

By Robert Frost

(A Christmas Circular Letter)

The city had withdrawn into itself

And left at last the country to the country;

When between whirls of snow not come to lie

And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove

A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,

Yet did in country fashion in that there

He sat and waited till he drew us out

A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.

He proved to be the city come again

To look for something it had left behind

And could not do without and keep its Christmas.

He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;

My woods—the young fir balsams like a place

Where houses all are churches and have spires.

I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.

I doubt if I was tempted for a moment

To sell them off their feet to go in cars

And leave the slope behind the house all bare,

Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.

I’d hate to have them know it if I was.

Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except

As others hold theirs or refuse for them,

Beyond the time of profitable growth,

The trial by market everything must come to.

I dallied so much with the thought of selling.

Then whether from mistaken courtesy

And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether

From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,

“There aren’t enough to be worth while.”

“I could soon tell how many they would cut,

You let me look them over.”

                                                     “You could look.

But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”

Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close

That lop each other of boughs, but not a few

Quite solitary and having equal boughs

All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,

Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,

With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”

I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.

We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,

And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:

“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant

To let him have them. Never show surprise!

But thirty dollars seemed so small beside

The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents

(For that was all they figured out apiece),

Three cents so small beside the dollar friends

I should be writing to within the hour

Would pay in cities for good trees like those,

Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools

Could hang enough on to pick off enough.

A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!

Worth three cents more to give away than sell,

As may be shown by a simple calculation.

Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.

I can’t help wishing I could send you one,

In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

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