Christmas trees and branches and twigs

My daughter and I went out to purchase a Christmas tree two days ago. It it now a temporary plant in my home, set up in the corner of my living room, from the corner window as you drive up the slope. We bought a Noble, not Doug fir, the difference being $45 not $15. Oregon grows Christmas trees, a main export along with mint, cranberries, and hazelnuts. I have wrapped trees in butcher paper, baled them like hay and sent them to Arizona over the years.

I love the pine scent, the colors and the deja vu of oraments resurrected once a year to enjoy. I teach in a school which continually debates the acceptance of Christmas trees. First, the fire Marshall does not allow them. Then, the paganists think they are a religious symbol while the traditionallists and apostolic believe they are a pagan symbol from the Druids. The Victorians ( I am kidding ) are happy that Queen Victoria married a German cousin and imported the gruunenblatt into England, despite Dickens. And the traditionalists are upset that we do not have one for all the above reasons. We do not have a tree, but today my honors students cut circular geometric projects (snowflakes) for dexterity practice.

In Izmir Turkey in 1956, we had a tree, a miracle in a Mediterranean climate. We were living there as NATO dependents and the U.S. Air Force imported trees from Switzerland for the famalies. Our "tree" was three branches wired together with a lead seal from the principality forests of Switzerland. The next year, the Suez crisis hit and tanks rumbled over the cobblestones five stories below our apartments. Oil was embargoed, and we had smelly kerosene heaters in the hall. My family was reduced to keeping warm by living in just the front room, and closing off the rest of the house except the bathroom and the kitchen. The Air Force had purchased trees this year. They were full ones. So my parents kept it on its side closed off behind frosted French doors in the living room until Christmas. In that icebox, it kept as fresh as just cut.

One year in 1963 we traveled up Nevada mountains to cut our own tree. My Dad was in Alaska that year on remote. So, traveling with my aunt and Italian American uncle into the snow zone, we cut him a little bitty one, and attached it to our own tree we picked , sliding down the slope on top of the tree. We celebrated with Tang hot toddys and polenta. We decorated it, included a very green cantaloupe, and mailed it to the end of the Aleutian chain. The tree arrived, the cantaloupe was ripe, and Dad had a tree. As I remember, he sent us King Crab and Russian fishing floats.

So, MY trees are around the world and very important to me. Going out with my daughter to pick a tree was priceless, and fun. I have picked a tree alone with her before, cut them in the hills outside my old home, but this was a new tree for my new home. And so, two women with a saw and vise grip put up the tree. We decorated it, lit and here it stands, a pagan, Dickensian, Victorian, Turkish memory, and family tree. It is ours, it is new, and it inaugurated our home like the trees on top of building projects. My daughter will get to do a tree with her two other dads, each with their own traditon. Christmas eve she and I will have champagne, cheese fondue and chocolate to celebrate. And, I will saw off a bottom ring, label it 2005 to keep the memory.