Christmas Traditions: Christmas Tree



My 1st Little Tree away from home. 
 Made the a lot of the little decorations.  My companion
 felt we had to give it away, which I agreed with,
 so we ended up with...

It is just not the Holiday season to me without a live, pine smelling decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room.  I went some years with out a tree, two when I went to Montana for my mission.  That first years was terrible.  I arrived in the mission field(to the area I would serve) on Dec. 10th, about a week in I realized that I would not have the time to establish connections with the people well enough to feel at home.  I really didn't care about presents, I remember pining for a Christmas tree.  I was hoping that some members would surprise us with one, but my heart knew that was a fool-hardy want. 

I agreed to a macrama plant holder/tree hanging on the window.

 The 2nd year I had just returned to the mission field right at the Holidays again after being home ill for 3 months.  I was angry and dishearten to return, but I felt I had to live up to my commitment. 


That year the Elders(Male missionaries) had a fake tree packed away in their mobile home.  They put it up and us sister's didn't have anything.  I made a tree on the wall with some garland.  My companion and I made the best of it.



The Elder's Tree



But I remember the difference I felt without the tree.


                                                       My desperate attempt at a tree. I made the garland from cereal and bought a kit to make the ornaments from beads.  The tree is just some garland on the wall, not to bad for no money.

I was taught that the tree is the chance for a decorative artistic statement and I loved it.  We didn't grow up with the red and gold tree that is normal for most homes, no, our tree was pink and white with ornaments I wasn't allowed to touch.  In early life, Mom was nice and we had a kids tree that had the cool bubble lights on them.  We were allowed to have the funny stuff on that tree, but the living room tree was highly theme.  As I grew older, I would look in catalogs trying to decided what I wanted my tree to someday look like.  My mother had a business at the time, so we were able to find all kinds of ornaments I had never seen in homes. 

In recent years my mother started collecting the Fairy ornaments made from Cicely Mary Barker Fairy prints.  My mother has always loved her work, even to the point where she used her artist skills to paint the prints herself and hang them in my bedroom, so when she saw the ornaments she fell in love and our tree changed. 


It was so fun to collect all of the fairies and then to find complimentary ornament.  We have fairy horns full of purple flowers, crystal clear birds and leaves,  Beautiful glitter flower balls and purple tassels.  All twinkling under a 1000, white, blue and purple lights.  We love our tree!  It speaks of who my mother and I are.  Plus everything is nice and subtle so you don't think of fairies when you see the tree glowing in the darkness.

That speaks of the Holidays to me.  I love sitting in the dark with just the computer screen on smelling the light scent of pine as Christmas music wafts across the room.  I always feel a sharp pang of disappointment at having to take the tree down.  I think my mom feels the same way because we are late getting our tree and we are very late taking the tree down.  It feels so wrong to me to get the tree right after Thanksgiving and then throw it away after Christmas.  That is just Nuts to me!  We have our tree going into February! Ha! That's a little long I admit.

I have always picked out the tree.  I learned from the best, my mom of course.  We are very particular about the shape and type.  It just has to be a Douglas fir, never got into the Noble trees.  They are to sparse.  The Noble won't hold all of our ornaments, but the main reason is because of the smell.  The Douglas has the sharp pine smell of the outdoors and that is the real reason for bringing a piece of nature into your living room.  Our trees have to have a fat bottom and go into a nice point.  It has to be a fat-bottom tree, we don't care if it has a hole in the middle, that can go towards the wall, but it need to have that right shape.

I wrote this essay as a piece of my personal history.  I think it explains the importance of the tree hunt.

The Christmas tree is very important to me.  The smell.  The lights, decorating it means Christmas to me.  The tradition I loved the most and remember with fondness  was going to the train tracks in downtown Los Angeles to pick out a tree.  I don't have any idea how my parents found out about the hub, but the tradition began while we lived in Burbank, Ca.  We would pile in the car and drive for quite a while to where  the sets of train tracks met.  Box cars full of fresh Douglas firs bound the night before in a white twine by some northern state native were being unloaded right in front of us.  Stripe red and white Tent after plain white tent filled the space, each with rows and rows of trees illuminated with bright bare bulbs in the chilly winter night.  It was usually cold enough to see our breath puff out like dragon smoke. 

One fateful night we found the ultimate Christmas Tradition.  We happened upon a tree auction.  My mother's eye twinkled with a barely contained glee.  We watched as tree after tree was pulled off the box car, twine cut and limbs fluffed to their natural position.  You had moments to decided if this was your tree or not.

My Mother was like a Drill Sargent inspecting her troops.  Each tree on the auction block had to meet a certain list of requirements.  Holes? Gone.  Right size?  No, gone.  Right shape?  Zip, outta here.  Finally, the one would arrive.  The bidding would start causing a buzz of electricity.  It was scary, but really fun at the same time.  Sometimes we lost and had to start the process over, but it was quite thrilling when we won.  We always got the perfect tree,  A Douglas fir full and round at the bottom moving upwards to a perfect point.

And there was Dad to tell us it was the right height and to drag our piney, sappy green treasure to the car, the sweet smelling sap sticking his fingers to the steering wheel.

We hunted those tree like an Amazonian tribe hunts for game.  On Christmas Eve the lights remain on to glow into the morning light.


Every year there were less and less vendors until we knew that our Christmas tradition had disappeared.

Our Tree now.  I tried to do a picture of the hanging fairies and the other ornaments. 

I thought I would leave my parents home and set up my own home and traditions, but that wasn't in the cards,  still I prepared for my own tree.  I bought a collection of glass Disney Ornaments.  My parents go me a 4 ft pink tree and I am very proud of my little creation.  It has mickey heads as the glass ball ornaments and a Tinkerbell tree-top with fiber optic wings.  The tree can't hold all the ornaments, I still have a set of Nightmare before Christmas ornaments in the box.  I am happy to see it glowing in our front hall.

Merry Christmas to Everyone and I hope that everyone can live their Holiday traditions.  I didn't know how important they were when I was little, but now as an adult, they are what make my Christmas.


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