Cutting the family Christmas tree

Walking into the department stores recently, I’ve been greeted by Christmas trees — fake trees like nothing you see in the woods or on tree lots during the weeks before the grand holiday.

But there are more and more of them each year as people seem to gravitate to this type of decoration.

Not me.

I wouldn’t have a fake tree no matter what unless it was an itsy, bitsy tree on a shelf that went with a scene of garland and Christmas figurines.

Like a lot of people, I’m never ready for Christmas. It seems like we just celebrated it such a short time ago.

It sneaks up on a lot of us.

Gearing up for the holiday, we used to venture out into the woods and get a tree. Actually, I never was fond of the trees we cut as it seemed they were grown into wild shapes just like the territory from which they came.

The first time I went Christmas hunting was with some friends. We took hot chocolate for the kids and some hot something else for the rest of the gang. Somebody brought a camp stove and we had chili beans cooking while we went trekking through snow that was about three feet to four feet deep.

Fortunately we had water proof everything and plowed through the white stuff making paths to a number of possibilities that were so snow-laden we couldn’t recognize a good tree from a bad one.

The bravest guy in the bunch was the shaker who whacked away at the trees with a broom so we could get some kind of idea of its conformation as if we were choosing a well-bred horse.

After whacking about a dozen trees, our tree-whacker said “uncle” and wanted something hot with which to warm up.

It wasn’t so bad cutting the tree after making a wide path around it, but packing it out to the road was a memory not to be forgotten, that’s for sure.

We took a total of four trees that, even with the remnants of white flakes still clinging to branches, seemed to have a decent shape.

After the trees were all loaded on the vehicles, we continued celebrating the season in the freezing cold, huddling around the cook stove like homeless people huddle over heat vents on the big city streets.

We ate and drank and ate and drank and finally decided to head home after packing up our mess.

I remember the tree my son and his dad and I picked out. They had made a quick decision, not considering much about the tree itself, or at least not more than they considered how cold and wet they were getting in spite of the snow gear.

It was the ugliest tree I have ever had in any of my homes.

There were a few decent branches on one side, but this tree was destined to be placed in a corner after adding a number of branches, carefully pushed into drilled holes on the trunk.

And, of course those were the branches that died first dropping needles like an animal shedding a winter coat.

Our family’s next venture cutting a Christmas tree was at Union Creek in Oregon. We took sleds and a makeshift 4-runner to what is now known as the snowboard.

The snow wasn’t deep and it was much easier to find a tree. Daddy towed our son on the sled, with the tree trailing behind.

We were near a resort and that appealed to me.

Hot coffee, coco and a warm fire burning in a rock fireplace was the cat’s meow. Our son rode a small Christmas train with sled runners and powered by a small tractor around the resort that day.

The tree was a nice white fir with a decent shape. At least we didn’t have to add branches.

Lately, I choose to visit tree lots and pick out a nicely shaped, sheared fir or pine tree. Or, if somewhere there is a bargain on a Grand or Noble fir, well, that’s my kind of Christmas tree.

I don’t know what we’ll end up with this year, but I’m not spending much time or money on it.

The idea is to get it up quickly so we can enjoy the holiday. After all, before we know it, another year will pass and the Yule tree goes on the burn pile or to the recycle bin.