I hope you’ve had a great week, wherever you are. I heard from many of you this past week, and I can’t tell you how lovely it is to hear from our readers. I try to respond to as many of your emails as I can, but if I’ve missed you, know I got your email, and it made me smile. Thank you!

 

I can’t begin to tell you how happy it makes me that you’re enjoying this series of wintertime memories. I certainly enjoy sharing them with you. 

 

I hosted a little get-together with my neighbors this past Thursday. We had ourselves a good old-fashioned Christmas potluck dinner, and it was marvelous. Excellent food and conversation that had us in tears, laughing so hard. 

 

I made a pumpkin custard pie with puree from the beautiful cheese wheel pumpkins my sweetheart and I grew this past summer.

 

I may be biased, but I believe the food you grow yourself always tastes better. 
 

 

My daughter came down to join us for the potluck Christmas party and to enjoy the Victorian Christmas weekend our town puts on every second Saturday in December. While we were walking downtown today, I thought of the memory I would like to share with all of you, and it’s about the annual tradition of selecting a Christmas tree. 

 

My mother’s Christmas trees were always tall and stately. Each December, we would go to the local tree farm, the same place where we would pick ruby-red strawberries in June. We would choose a carefully grown and trimmed balsam fir every year. 

 

And while I continue this tradition with my children, I hold a very special place in my heart for the Christmas trees that stood in my father’s log cabin each Christmas. 
 

 

The hunt for the cabin Christmas tree was always reserved for snowy weekends, usually the first snowy weekend after Thanksgiving. I grew up in upstate NY, where it wasn’t uncommon to go trick or treating with a snowsuit on under your Halloween costume. So, snow was a given come December, not always on Christmas day, but it would definitely make an appearance. 

 

One year in particular, I remember we got quite a lot of snow at Thanksgiving, and that very weekend, Dad announced it was time to get the tree. We both bundled up in our snow boots, mittens, and hats. 
 

 

And when we walked out our door, the deck overlooked the meadow at the edge of the woods. It was blanketed in snow, deep snow, too. I remember stepping off of the steps into the snow and watching my boots disappear.

 

Dad grabbed the saw from his workshop, and we walked toward the path leading from the house to the woods. 
 

 

Here and there, the brown stalks of dried plants poked up through the snow, enough so that we could pick out where the path was. As we broke through the fresh snow, I remember telling my father, “this is just like being on an adventure!”

 

We made our way through the field and towards the edge of the woods. Once we left the open field and stepped into the trees, the snow muffled all sound; everything seemed very close. 

 

Just beyond the meadow and in the woods was a creek. And in this quiet winter world, all you could hear was the sound of the creek running along its path, icicles along its banks. Come January, it would be completely frozen over, and I would lay with my ear pressed to the ice and listen to the water running beneath it. 

 

But now it was December; now we had to cross on the two wooden planks dad laid across the stream back in the summer to drive the tractor across. The stream wasn’t deep, by any means, but a boot full of icy water would mean a trip back to the cabin to change. 
 

 

Once on the other side, you would walk up a steep hill that led into the heart of my father’s land. We walked among silent sentinels covered in pillowy snow.

 

Chickadees would flit from branch to branch, watching us, and red squirrels would chatter noisily from the branches above our heads. 

Dad kept us on the path he had made many years before but said he had a surprise for me. After walking for a while, dad suddenly cut off the path and headed deeper into the woods. We had to hold back branches and stoop to avoid getting a face full of snow. 

Eventually, we stepped into a small clearing and in the center was a stand of balsam fir trees. There were about a dozen of them, growing in three neat rows as if someone had planted them that way on purpose. It was intensely quiet here; even the red squirrels stopped chattering. Bright red cardinals hopped among the bendy branches of the pine trees. 

 

 

I remember reaching for my dad’s hand and telling him I thought this place was magical and that we had stepped into a Christmas card. We stood for a while watching the cardinals. 

 

In the end, we left those trees there and instead opted for one of the scraggly eastern white pines that grew all over in the woods. We left the magical Christmas trees there, which were never quite as magical as that day. 

 

I would often stumble across that little stand of firs on my wanderings in the summer, and it just wasn’t the same. Whatever magic the snow had brought with it didn’t stay. 

 

We decorated our goofy white pine tree, all long gangly branches. Unlike my mother’s preferred trees, this tree looked to be as rough spun as we were. Aside from one box of old glass balls, the ornaments were handmade, and I made a popcorn garland to string on the branches.

 

There were no Christmas lights as we didn’t have electricity, but the glow of the gas lamps and our candles reflected in the red, gold, and green balls. 
 

 

Now that I’m grown, I am fond of these so-called Charlie Brown trees. I love our huge Christmas trees each year, trimmed with decades of collected Christmas ornaments and a dozen strings of lights, but there’s always that moment where I wistfully think I should have left the fancy tree in the woods and come home with the funny little pine tree instead. 

 

 

We’ve got plenty of new articles over on the website this week. I’ve selected a few favorites, but don’t forget to check out all the other great new pieces too.