Where I Come From

Its Christmas Tree Country out here in the foothills of the Oregon Cascades. My commute to and from school each day is exactly 4.5 miles of backroads. Within that short span, I pass signs for 4 different places selling Christmas trees.

If I were to go another tenth of a mile further in any direction, I would come across a few more.

And that doesn't count the fields of not-big-enough, and so-overgrown-they-look-like-a-forest Christmas trees.

As I was driving the roads taking photos of these signs for you, I crossed paths with a giant flatbed loaded with Christmas trees doomed for a tree lot in town.

The point being that it is amazingly easy to acquire a tree for our holiday decorating. And super inexpensive too. If I was a Veteran, I could get my tree for free.

But several years ago there was a shortage of our favorite variety, the Noble Fir. So we bought a pallet of baby trees and planted them along our upper fence line.

It was February of 2005, and we had no idea that the spark of our Firstborn's life was to be lit in a few short months.

And we had no idea that when he was just 5 1/2 years old, we would decide to forego all trees grown and cultivated by others, ignore the neighbor across the street selling trees from his field, avert our eyes from the small-ness of our own trees, and go for it.

I like big Christmas trees. I dream of the day when I can have a tree so tall it brushes the rafters of a vaulted ceiling.

But our living room is really small, and every year the added pressure of a full-sized tree literally has us tripping over furniture.

This year, happily, we didn't have to re-arrange anything.

We dragged in a tool trunk from the shop, layered it with one of our burlap coffee bags, and PRESTO!

Teeny-tiny tree at least gives the impression of being taller. And we are satisfied.

To be continued...