2004-12-06 - 8:58 a.m.
Okay, by my watch Christmas is 19 days away...so I guess it's time to start the annual process.
A little background. As some of you know, I come from the frozen northern parts of the country (born in Massachusetts, raised in New York, High School in Michigan), where by now if there isn't snow on the ground, it's expected any day now, and the temperature is closer to 60 degrees Kelvin than it is Farenheit.
This has several interesting effects...one of them is that pine trees grow really well...why, I don't know, I'm not a horticulturist So "The Tree" for Christmas in my past has generally been a fairly fresh cut thing.
When I moved out here, the one nice thing about the dive of an apartment we were living in for a few years was the pleasant discovery that about 5 miles away was a Real Live Working Christmas Tree Farm. One of those "Drive in, park, get handed a saw, go traipsing through the rows of trees, find yours, cut it down, and voila, you've got *exactly* the tree you want" places.
So Rhiannon and I had made it a tradition that right around this time every year, we did just that. For five years in a row, that was the official "Okay, we can start thinking Christmas now" moment. It also provided numerous moments during the year when we would drive past it for one reason or another and we would talk to the trees, saying things like "Grow good, grow strong trees, we'll see you in December" (or other equivalent silliness...). Hey...they say talking to plants is good...
Well, we didn't do it for the last couple of years, because we had been travelling up to my parents place in Pennsylvania for Christmas, and a tree that never gets presents under it is just...well...a tree...so we didn't do one.
This year, we're staying home, because when it was time to make those plans it looked like I was going to be On Call for my job, so couldn't go 6+ hours away. Of course, I've changed jobs...but still, we're staying home.
So, last Saturday we got into the truck and headed to the Christmas Tree farm.
We knew right away that something wasn't quite right...because there wasn't a full parking lot right up next to the road. But, well...most of the trees were always back in the back 40, so maybe they just moved it all down the driveway a bit. Especially when you consider that the trees in the front looked like fresh plantings.
But as we drove down the drive, we were getting more and more concerned. Nobody else seemed to be here. And really, there weren't many trees at all.
Finally, we got to where the trailer was. Generally, that trailer is a busy, busy, busy place on a December Saturday. The line of people getting saws or paying for their trees, getting new stands, etc would be 10 folks long.
It was vacant.
All there was was one single little sign "We are opening late this year (December 9th) and all we will have is some 4-8 foot Spruces...$20 per tree".
Something just wasn't right here...this is the Christmas Tree farm...it's supposed to be all hustle and bustle. Yeah, we might have been rushing the season a little bit, but not *that* much. Certainly there should have been more than just us.
Well, just us and the older couple that drove up, obviously on the same mission, just behind us.
So as Rhi and I were standing there figuring out a plan B (we couldn't just wait, because we don't have time to go tree hunting next weekend, because of Investiture and Sunday's fight practice), the owner of the farm comes out of the house.
Wow...he looks old.
And he tells the four of us assembled what's going on.
This is going to (probably, almost certainly) be the last year they're doing the trees, and all they're doing is selling out what they've got. Since all they have is the spruses, and they tend to only last about 2 weeks, he's not opening until the 9th...and even then he's only got about 150 or so trees, and once they're gone, they're gone.
Fortunately for us, and the older couple, and the family from Maine that pulled in as he was telling us the story, he agreed that "If you want one now, you can have it, just understand it will be dropping needles long before Christmas Day".
True, it will be, but with water and plant food, it can be minimized...at least kept to a manageable level. We're not the type who leaves the tree up until 12th Night anyhow...so it'll make 3 weeks.
So we went looking through his trees...and found the one we wanted, and cut it. Usually finding the "right" tree takes an hour, and there's several really good ones to select from...this time it came down to three possibles, and the right one was pretty obvious pretty quick. Usually, cutting down the tree takes a long time, because the saws are dull from being used all the time, and because it's dry the wood is tough to cut. This time, because everything was so moist this year and the saw was freshly sharpened the wood cut like butter.
And that sucks. It's not right...I shouldn't have been cutting easily through a tree in the almost dead quiet on a 55 degree day. I should have been struggling through the biting cold to saw through the tree with the shouts of the children and families all looking for their right tree.
I'm not sure what we're going to do next year...I hate Pre-cut trees, because you have no way of knowing when they were cut (Christmas Tree Harvesting starts as early as October, and the early cut ones tend to *really* drop needles). There's also the issue of the harvesters cutting *way* more trees than they sell, wasting them. I just don't like it.
But now we have our tree for this year. We strung the lights Saturday, and this morning the elves came and did the rest of the decorations...so I guess it's Christmastime...
I just wonder if it's going to be the last one like it...that's not helping my Seasonal Depression one little bit.
I do know this though, if you have time in the next couple of weeks, and you're in the area, go down to IronBridge road in Chesterfield County and get your tree from that farmer. If it really is his last year, then I personally think it would only be appropriate that he end up with no trees left over.
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