Tag: Christmas trees

Posted on

Nipmass Time

The bags containing this year’s harvest of “Xenia’s VSOP” ( Very Special Old Preserve) catnip are curing in the shop. I have have sampled the goods at all stages to make sure that quality control has been maintained. After all, you can’t depend on those layabout humans to treat quality herbs properly; leave them alone for five minutes, and they’ll be drying it like basil!
I hate to be haughty, but you can’t rely on them.
Just last week, father used some of the dried stalks as kindling. He was immolating nip! The stalks are OK for Christmas presents for my B list relatives.
Yesterday they went to get my “tree,” it’s about time. There is nothing so satisfactory as running the little train off the tracks, chewing ribbon, and playing with little toys suspended from branches. But now they have slowed down. It’s not fair! What do you mean you’ll get the train going later! Where are the toys in the trees!

Humans can’t live with them, can’t live without them!

Posted on

Christmas Tree Hunts – III

Chapter four

As a kid in Manhatten, the hunt for our family Christmas Tree consisted of a trek three blocks over from where we lived to where someone from Maine had set up to sell trees. My sister and I would eye every tree in the lot until our father that, great urban forest ranger, would select one, stomp it on the pavement, watch how many needles fell off, and pronounce the choice sound.

Later on, I got introduced to much less urban hunts that led to woodlots. Through I would still stomp them onto rocks to see how many needles fall off. Old habits die hard.

I remarried in the 1980s, and we soon started a family. The kids accompanied us to the local wood lots on sleighs as soon as possible; before they could walk. We have four children, but this story features our oldest Nick and our youngest, Louis,

It had been a very snowy early December in Central Massachusetts that year, and the snow was deep on the high slopes of the woodlot in which we were tree hunting. We had been coming to this tree farm for years, and our children already knew the routine which brought them the most joy:

  1. Run around.
  2. Check out every single tree.
  3. Walk up as high as the farthest meadow and tree copse.
  4. Finally, pick a tree in the most inaccessible location.
  5. Cut it and have dad put on the sleigh.

That year there was a hitch in the plan. Louis, junior, our youngest, had pretty much reached the limits of his endurance. He would have to ride the sleigh back down the hills, and dad would have to carry the tree by himself. Mom would have her hands full, shepherding our twin girls. Nick, the oldest, was detailed to pull the sleigh with Louis on it. We started back towards the bright red barn with everyone assigned their job. The goal was to get down the hill to where the hot cider and free candy canes were. With the winter light failing and the snow deep, we had a harder slog of it than we had expected. At the rear of the convoy, Nick was fuming about pulling Louis.

At last, we hit the high spot from which we could see our destination. We were standing on the brow of a high ridge. There are two ways down. The trail to the right snakes gradually down, or the steep descent straight ahead. The steep slope is not a safe way down, so we turned to the trail after a short break. Everyone except Nick and Louis, As I turned to make sure that everyone was following, I saw a gleam in Nick’s eye. He gently put his foot on the back of the sleigh, and before I could say anything, he softly pushed the sled down the steep slope. I heard my wife yell as she realized that her baby was hurtling towards the bottom of the hill. There was a small satisfied grin on Nick’s face Until he realized that only a snowbank separated his brother’s path at the bottom from a road. By now, we had hurled ourselves after the sled. We reached the base after the sled had slammed into the snowbank. We had to dig to extract Louis because all that was exposed was the sled’s back tip. Luckily the snow was fresh and soft. He was shocked, had massive amounts of snow all over him and in his clothes, but was unharmed. Louis was in better shape than Nick, whose look of panic suggested that he got much more from his impulse than expected.

The story became memorable in the family, and luckily the two brothers are close friends.

Posted on

Christmas Tree Hunts – II

Chapter three – The Quilted Woodlot

 A few years after the “Shotgun Christmas,” I was introduced to another Christmas tree hunt style. My first wife’s family was from a small island on the Maine coast. It was their tradition to go to their wood lot and hunt out a tree. They were teetotalers, so I expected no Schnapps, and nobody in that family hunted, so shotguns were out. We walked into the woods equipped with snowshoes and bow saws. This family was quite particular about their tree. Only Balsams deserved consideration, and those had to be perfect. My family’s criteria for trees were out of place here. It seemed that every tree I pointed out had some fatal flaw I couldn’t see. This pattern worked out to be an ongoing theme in the marriage, but I was not yet aware. In any case, the wood lot became quilted by our snowshoe tracks that afternoon. By dusk, it looked rather like one giant spruce covered waffle.

At last, on the very edge of the lot, we spotted the perfect tree. Then came the final test: would Mommy like it? I was cold and wishing for some of George’s schnapps by this time; hell, I’d of been happy to have a shotgun. I listened to them, discussing whether Mommy would like the perfect balsam. After about forty minutes of this, they decided to hike through the lot to the other side to view several other candidates. I decided to stay and watch the sun go down. As they traipsed away, I thought about my frozen feet, hands, and nose. I looked at the saw; I looked at the tree. I went to the perfect tree and started cutting. Sometime later, they traipsed back through the lot and said: “We decided to take this one” as the tree fell. After that, I avoided spending Christmas with my in-laws.

Posted on

Shotgun Christmas

This weekend my wife and I’ll go hunting for our Christmas tree. While doing this, I’ll be recalling other adventures in the woods. This is the first of three linked stories:

Chapter One – New York City

Growing up in Manhattan, my idea of the forest was the little woods in the parks I played in. The lore of Christmas tree hunting was restricted. My father, sister, and I visited a vacant lot where a gentleman from Maine set up shop every year. This was in the days before massive trailer truckloads of trees made their way to the city after being cut in September or October. His product was uneven, and from his own acreage somewhere in the mysterious “North Woods.” The tree stand had been an empty waste place of weeds and broken brick the night before but became a transformed place through scent, texture, and color. 

Our selection procedure was direct. You tried to get there as early as you could due to the failing light of December. Evaluating a tree in the near dark was. You strolled the aisles of trees looking for likely candidates. Running your hands along spruce branches, you tried to determine if a tree seemed to have good color, was the right size and that the needles didn’t fall away with a light touch. If it made that cut, you took a more complete look. Out of the rack and onto the snow, already covered with a carpet of needles, came the tree. My father would give it a sharp bang on the ground while my sister and I watched how many needles the tree shed. If it dropped too many back into the rack it went. 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 onto the car and back to the apartment—end of the hunt.

Chapter Two – Somewhere Outside of Portland

Sometime towards the end of the 1960’s I was introduced to another form of tree hunt. I had accepted a job in an operating room at a small hospital in Maine. Just a day before Christmas Eve, the schedule of the operating room was slow. Only emergencies and a few scheduled procedures were in the offing. The operating room Director looked over at George and I ( the only two males on the staff) and detailed us to take the afternoon and hunt out a tree for the department party. I expected that George and I’d be gone no more than 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 come across anything interesting. ” OK”, I said  agreeably; after all, I was on a hunt, not working, and there was free beer. 

George had a large family. Everyone of age to hunt, if they liked to or not, got a deer ticket every season. Those with no particular love or aptitude for deer hunting passed them along to George. George ensured that his large family always had venison in the freezer. George knew his way about the woods and hunting.

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, anything in the woods easily eluded us. Around 3 PM, we realized that we wouldn’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 to walk a considerable piece to find spruces. Our diligence was rewarded, and we stumbled on 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. We were about a mile from the truck. We had no saw. And had to be back at the hospital in about an hour.

Well, we got our tree and got back to the hospital in time. We both had hangovers from running through snow-covered woods with 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 looked at her, grinned, and said, “No. Buckshot”.

Stay tuned for my next Christmas Tree adventure in Maine.

Posted on

Tipple

What’s your favorite holiday, tipple? Wassail, red wine or white, Eggnog with a kick of brandy? Perhaps you are a hot spiced cider fan? It hardly matters. It’s all in the company we keep, or currently – can’t keep. Zoom, Facetime, or Skype calls are fine, but the holidays were not about wine or tipple; they were about the company of friends at concerts, tree lightings, and dinner parties. The Christmas dinner and game nights when old rivalries are revived, and siblings recall holiday shenanigans past.

I make most of my living as a videographer. So last night, I began editing together snippets of old holiday video. I’ll share it with family and friends. In the video, my children are fifteen years younger. The dog and cat are “supervising” the tree decoration. The cat jumps at the train running under the tree. And all that is old seems new again.

As bad as the current situation seems, it will pass. A favorite professor was a former Royal Navy officer who introduced me to the old toast: To Absent Friends. So as you drink your favorite drink this holiday toast to absent friends and family, may we all be reunited soon.

Posted on

Adventures In Coastal Living- Christmas Tree Hunts

Shotgun Christmas 

Growing up in Manhattan, my idea of the forest was the limited woods in the parks I played in. The lore of Christmas tree hunting was restricted. My father, sister, and I visited a vacant lot where a gentleman from Maine set up shop every year. This was in the days before massive trailer truckloads of trees made their way to the city after being cut in September or October. The product was uneven, and the entrepreneur was frequently selling from off his own acreage somewhere in the mysterious “North Woods.” The tree stand had been an empty waste place of weeds and broken brick the night before but became a transformed place through scent, texture, and color. 

Our selection procedure was direct. You tried to get there as early as you could due to the failing light of December afternoons. Evaluating a tree in the near dark was a chancy proposition. You strolled the aisles of trees looking for likely candidates. Running your hands along spruce branches, you tried to determine if a tree seemed to have good color, was the right size and that the needles didn’t fall away with a light touch. If it made that cut, you took a more complete look. Out of the rack and onto the snow, already covered with a carpet of needles, came the tree. My father would give it a sharp bang on the ground while my sister and I watched to see how many needles the tree shed. If it dropped too many back into the rack it went. 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 onto the car and back to the apartment. End of the hunt.

Sometime towards the end of the 1960’s I was introduced to another form of tree hunt. I had accepted a job in an operating room in a small hospital in Maine. Just a day before Christmas Eve, the schedule of the operating room was slow. Only emergencies and a few scheduled procedures were in the offing. The operating room Director looked over at George and I ( the only two males on the staff) and detailed us to take the afternoon and hunt out a tree for the department party. I expected that George and I’d be gone no more than an hour. George had other ideas. Climbing into his pickup truck, he quickly pulled out a nearly frozen six-pack of Buds. He looked at me and said: “lets head over to my place, get some shotguns, and see if we come across anything interesting. ” OK, I said to agreeably, after all, I was on a hunt, not working, and there was free beer. 

George had a large family. Everyone of age to hunt, if they liked to or not, got a deer ticket every season. Those with no particular love or aptitude for deer hunting passed them along to George, who ensured that his large family always had venison in the freezer. 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 that we wouldn’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 to walk a considerable piece to find spruces. Our diligence was rewarded, and we stumbled on 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. We were about a mile from the truck. We had no saw. And had to be back at the hospital in about an hour.

Well, we got our tree and got back to the hospital in time. We both had hangovers from running through snow-covered woods with 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 looked at her, grinned, and said, “No. Buckshot”.

The Quilted Woodlot

 A few years after the “Shotgun Christmas,” I was introduced to another style of Christmas Tree hunt. My first wife’s family was from a small island on the Maine coast. It was their tradition to go to their wood lot and hunt out a tree. They were teetotalers, so I expected no Schnapps, and nobody in that family hunted, so shotguns were out. We walked into the woods equipped with snowshoes and bow saws. This family was quite particular about their tree. Only Balsams deserved consideration, and those had to be absolutely perfect. My family’s criteria for trees were out of place here. It seemed that every tree I pointed out had some fatal flaw I couldn’t see. This worked out to be an ongoing theme in the marriage, but I was not yet aware of it. In any case, the wood lot became quilted by our snowshoe tracks that afternoon. By dusk, it looked rather like one big spruce covered waffle.

At last, on the very edge of the lot, we spotted the perfect tree. Then came the final test: would Mommy like it? I was cold and wishing for some of George’s schnapps by this time, hell I’d of been happy to have a shotgun. I was listening to a discussion of whether or not Mommy would like the most perfect balsam in the world. After about forty minutes of this, the decision was made for hiking through the lot to the other side to view several other candidates. I decided to stay and watch the sun go down. As they traipsed away, I thought about my frozen feet, hands, and nose. I looked at the saw, I looked at the tree. I went to the perfect tree and started cutting. Sometime later they traipsed back through the lot and said: “We decided to take this one” as the tree fell. After that, I avoided spending Christmas with my in-laws.

%d bloggers like this: