Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

For the 3rd year in a row, my family went to a local tree farm today to pick out our Christmas tree.  When you visit this family owned tree farm, you walk through the fields in search of your family's perfect tree.  Once you find it, you flag down an employee who will chop it down for you, then you carry it to the front lot where they shake the loose needles off, bundle it up, and tie it to the top of your car. 

For me, a visit to this particular tree farm makes me a little nostalgic for a time long ago when I was a little girl.  For two reasons. 

First, it reminds me of the tree stand that my parents ran for a couple of winters when we lived in Oklahoma.  We lived there from 1977-1980, but I can't remember if they did the tree stand all 3 winters we were there.  I do remember sitting in a little trailer with a portable heater at our feet, our bodies all bundled up from the cold, and my dad in a full length Carhartt-type snow suit for men so that he could help people carry their trees to their cars. Who knew Oklahoma could be so cold?!  It's a fuzzy picture in my mind, but it's there - a childhood memory that I conjure up every Christmas.

Second, although my family never got our Christmas tree at the tree farm we visited today, I always knew exactly where it was. It is on the same road as the farm where my mom was raised, a Century Farm that was owned by her family for over 100 years.  As I drive up and down the hills of the long gravel road, I remember all the trips to Grandma's house - the yummy smells from the kitchen, the long walks with uncles and cousins in the timber, playing in the cool water of the creek, hiking over the hill of the cornfield from Grandma's house to my uncle's house to see his family, and the farm animals scattered all over the farm. 

I pointed out the lane for the farm to my children as we passed by it, and told them that it's a long lane with a big white house at the end.  It always seemed endless to me, especially when we had to walk down it in the middle of the winter or during a muddy spring when our car just couldn't make the trek.  My son said he could see the house, but I know what he really saw was just the top of the old barn set back behind the house. 

 

In my mind, though, I can still see the view from the top of the hill:

The "little timber" would be on our right, and a garage housing trucks, tractors, and various parts beyond that.  A big white house sits just inside a fence and gate.  Just in front of it to the left is an old chicken coop, and a grain type shed set up further than that.  As you approach the house, a 2nd lane is on the right, behind the lilac bushes, and leads to the barn, cow pastures, more fields, hog lots, and the "big timber". 

 

If you walk behind the house, you see the sprawling orchard.  To the left of that is the field that, at one time or another, housed a goat, a fallen tree "fort", and a path to more pigs and sheds.  Straight back from the house is Grandma's garden where you can find nearly every vegetable in abundance before it makes its way to the kitchen and the cellar in jars. 

 

Walk along the path next to the garden and come to the rickety old gate that seems so large to a girl of 7, but probably isn't that big to an adult.  Climb over and you're in the yard of the falling down "old house", the home where 6 children were raised until their new house was built. 

 

Head over another fence to the grain bin and the big old barn, but pick up a big stick before you cross over into the pig lot.  You never know when one might charge at you!  Keep walking along the path and head for the big trees, the timber.  Keep an eye open for the bulls that are out there somewhere, but they'll leave you alone if you keep your distance.  You might get lucky and catch a glimpse of a deer, or feel the minnows between your toes in the mud of the creek, and you might find some pretty little wild flowers to take back to Grandma.  And she'll place those flowers tenderly in a jelly jar and set them on the window ledge above her kitchen sink. 

The main farm was sold in 2007, shortly before my uncle chose to end his life in the house where he was raised.  We were all there to clean out the house after his funeral - my mom, her siblings, my cousins.  We found many old things hidden away in the attics, memories my parents and aunts and uncles had stashed away long ago.  Blue 4-H jackets, cowboy hats and boots, long forgotten wedding gifts that were still in packages, baby clothes meant to be saved and remembered, cribs used for the many grandchildren who had visited over the years, books and notebooks from school days, and pictures.  We shared many laughs and smiles, and many more tears as we remembered all those loved ones who were gone from this world. 

 

We all grabbed something, or thingS, that we wanted to save and transport to our own homes.  For me, the medal sign and certificate that declared the land a "Century Farm", a few clothing items worn by me and my siblings, some of my Grandmother's dishes, my Godfather's 4-H jacket, and an old budget record book kept in my Grandma's handwriting that documented the debits and credits of the family farm. 

 

Real objects that stir the pool of memories.

 

It's all there.  Locked in my mind.  A distant childhood memory that I can see, clear as day, as if it just happened yesterday.  A memory that I wish could come alive now for my children so that they could live it and see my happy childhood days for themselves.  Hopefully my memories are clear enough that I can paint them a picture of that place through my stories.  And hopefully I'll tell the story a little more often than just once a year, in late November, on the way to the tree farm down the road.