Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

For the last couple of years, we’ve had a small tree that lives outside and is then brought inside for the holidays. The annual tree hunt has ceased to be about traipses through the woods looking for the ideal tree to shelter the nativity scene under and is more about wildly expensive sticks that drop their needles all at once. The cut-your-own lots are now cutthroat, and outrageous profit is the maxim of the operators.

But there are some truly wonderful memories of Christmas tree hunts over the years. This is the first of three ghosts that will visit offering you something to meditate on (???). This one is all about how it all began.

Shotgun Christmas

Growing up in Manhattan, I thought the forest was the little woods in the parks. The lore of Christmas tree hunting was limited. My father, sister, and I visited a vacant lot where a gentleman from Maine set up shop every year.

Our selection procedure was direct. You arrived as early as possible due to the failing December light. Evaluating a tree after dark was a chancy proposition. You strolled the aisles of trees. Running your hands along spruce branches, you tried to determine if a tree had good color, was the right size, and the needles didn’t fall away with a light touch. If it made that cut, you took a more complete look.

The tree came out of the rack and onto the snow. My father would give it a sharp bang on the ground while my sister and I watched how many needles the tree shed. When a tree dropped too many, it was a reject. If it passed, we spun it in place and evaluated the thin spots, bushy areas, and overall shape. If it passed this test, it went into the car and back to the apartment. End of the hunt. For life in New York City, this was as idyllic an experience as possible. A real connection to nature for the little boy to whom vacant lots and small parks represented wilderness.

Towards the end of the 1960s, I was introduced to another form of tree hunting. I was working in a small hospital in Maine. The day before Christmas Eve, the operating room Director looked at George and me. She told us to take the morning and hunt out a tree for the departmental party. 

I thought this might take an hour. George had other ideas. Climbing into his pickup truck, he quickly pulled out a nearly frozen six-pack of beer. He looked at me and said: “let’s head over to my place, get some shotguns, and see if we find anything interesting. ” OK, I told him agreeably; after all, I was on a hunt, not working, and there was free beer. 

By the time we arrived at George’s house, the near-frozen beer had chilled us terribly. A few shots of peppermint schnapps were needed to defrost. By the time we hit the woods, we felt nice and warm. But any deer in the woods easily eluded us. Around 3 PM, we realized we couldn’t find anything to shoot at; our “buzz” was severely faded, and we had no Christmas tree. 

We began seriously hunting for spruces. The woods around us were mostly pine, and we had a hike to find spruces. Eventually, we stumbled upon a small copse of balsams. Any of them would be appropriate. George looked at me and indicated a nice seven-footer. We nodded to each other but then simultaneously realized that our plan was flawed. The truck was a mile away; there was no saw. And had to be back at the hospital in about an hour.

We got our tree and got back to the hospital in time. We both had hangovers from running through snow-covered woods with a seven-foot spruce on our shoulders while coming down from a lousy peppermint schnapps high. Bea, the operating room supervisor, said nothing as she eyed the tree and took in the shredded stump. The long look she gave it told everything. “How did you boys cut this poor thing down? with your teeth?” George grinned and said, “No. Buckshot”.