Back To My Roots

It's time that I get back to my roots, the roots of my blog, that is.  Fittingly, the roots of my blog have a lot to do with actual roots…and trees, and flowers, and bugs, and weather.  I began this digital writing adventure many years ago with a purpose in mind: to explain my wonderment at the nature that surrounds me and to inspire others to wonder.  I have taken detours into travel writing, recipe sharing, and family philosophizing, but nature is almost always the common thread.  The natural environment is both the draw and the backdrop for many a family vacation, as well as some part of the food sustenance that ends up on our dinner plates.  If I've learned nothing else in my years of contemplative writing, it's that people never live completely apart from the influence of the natural world that surrounds us.  And that is a beautiful thing.  It gives me hope and joy to see that, even in our industrialized world, nature is never very far from our experience.

I find this truth to be no different during the crazy holiday season of consumerism that peaks on Christmas morning.  So, today, I'd like to reflect on the tree that stands in the corner of my living room, adorned with lights and ornaments, formerly crowded with wrapped presents, now dropping its needles in the drying heat of our wood stove.  The Christmas tree I'm describing is the first real tree I've ever had for this occasion.  Although I grew up on over a hundred acres of wooded Alaskan landscape, the only Christmas tree I ever knew came out of a cardboard box and was made of painted green metal and plastic.  When I started a family of my own, I also bought a new, fake Christmas tree.  Mine was a much smaller, gold tinsel-branched affair that we pulled out of a golden-glittery tube each year.  It was almost festive enough even without any lights or decorations.  Our 3-ft tall golden tree did the job and brought us joy for more than a dozen years, but, this year, I wanted a real tree.

I don't think I'm being environmentally hypocritical here.  To be sure, there is debate as to which is the more environmentally friendly option: real tree or fake tree.  I think it depends on a number of factors, like how often a fake tree is purchased, whether the old fake tree ends up in a landfill, what the environmental impact was of making the fake tree, and similar questions regarding the origin and impacts of choosing a real tree.  For instance, my childhood Christmas tree served us for almost 20 years before it met a sad fate in a storage fire and became a large, hard, lump of melted green plastic.  Apart from the fire, our fake tree seems like a pretty sustainable choice.  Alternatively, my husband's parents traditionally spend the day after Thanksgiving seeking the perfect tree at a local tree farm in Western Oregon.  The wet climate in their area makes tree farming a fairly sustainable, and lucrative, venture as well.  But, arguing the merits of fake versus real Christmas trees isn't really the intention of my blog tonight.  It's merely an aspect I wanted to acknowledge.  Actually, I'm far more interested in the connections formed between people and their trees.

As I stated earlier, my childhood included one manufactured Sears & Roebuck Douglas Fir that my mom wrestled into being every year.  My brother and I loved that tree!  It was a right of passage to grow big and strong enough to help her wedge the bent metal "branch" hooks into the barely-big-enough holes that ringed the metal "trunk."  When it was properly erected and fluffed to hide the gaps, we would lie on our backs under the tree and look up through it's hollow middle to view the lights from the inside.  I don't know why that made it more magical, but it did.  Sometimes our cats would climb up inside the tree to perch on the branches, presumably to admire the view as well.  There was simply something primally satisfying about having a tree, decked out in twinkly lights and silver tinsel like it was going to a ball, smack in the middle of our family room for all to enjoy.  Similarly, it seems that our brave little golden tinsel tree I bought at a craft store for $10 is just as special to my 12-yr old son.  Despite my decision to install a real tree this year, he insisted that the old one be put up as well.  He spoke of it like it was an old family member that shouldn't be left out of the festivities just because someone new came to town.  I wondered if the act of heading out into the snow to pick a real tree from the woods of our homestead, all Norman Rockwell-style, would have any effect on his fondness for the tinsel tree.  I'll wager that it won't.

When I asked my husband to come with us and help select a tree outdoors this year, he let out a little groan.  See, his childhood was exactly that picturesque situation of going with his family to a tree farm, riding a tractor-drawn sleigh piled with hay bales out among the rows of conical evergreens, having the perfect one wrapped and mounted on top of the car, and then erecting it in the 10-ft ceiling dining room of their Victorian home.  It was an all-day family outing that he came to dread.  He doesn't quite know why, but, to this day, he cringes at the very thought of hanging garland.  When I assured him that our Christmas tree outing would take less than 20 minutes and would require no more than a hand-saw, he became pleasantly obliging.  And so it was brief.  We found a decent little black spruce on the edge of our field not more than a hundred yards from our front door.  It was once a seedling that gained a foothold in that highly diverse edge boundary between my grandfather's formerly cultivated land and the wild woods that surround it. It is demonstration of that process of succession, whereby disturbed land returns to its native ecology over generations of plant life.  Though we ended the life of an adolescent tree, we cleared the way for half a dozen more saplings sprouting under the shade of its branches, of which maybe two will gain enough nutrients and sunlight to one day reach maturity.  I'm justifying, I know.

The point is, the tree from my grandfather's field, with branches missing on one side near the top, now stands in a place of honor, looking dapper hanging with gold balls, nutcrackers, and glass birds.  Its days are numbered, for sure, but it is pampered with fresh water daily and will be revered right to the end.  Its green-glowing glory is the first thing we see every morning and it brightens our day.  It reminds me that nature's form is perfect, even in its imperfection.  It imbues a sense of specialness to the atmosphere of our home and fills it with the fresh smell of its spicy sap.  It makes us cheerful on the long nights of our dark winter and brings hope for the changing seasons.  Is it better than a fake tree?  I don't really know.  I think it's a privilege that we have access to a thousand more just like it right out our back door, so we can harvest sustainably.  But could I get just as much enjoyment from a fake tree?  Probably.

The importance, for me, is in the symbol of the tree.  And I don't mean the religious symbols that have been hijacked by rival beliefs throughout history.  I mean, simply, that people relate to the Christmas tree as something rooted in their traditions that brings them joy.  We desire to have a living thing, or a replica of it, adorned and beautiful in the middle of our lives.  We want it to look as if its perfectly happy growing out of the carpet.  If people could bring the tree indoors, roots and all, we would.  And we would having real birds nesting in the branches, and squirrels storing nuts, and glittering snow sparkling in the moonlight.  We just want to bring the outdoors in and make it comfortable.  I think that is the beauty of a Christmas tree.  It is an excuse to be a tree hugger, to admit that we think nature is pretty awesome and we want it a little closer.  My husband may not like getting the tree, or stringing the lights on it, but he still enjoys admiring it.  Don't we all?

Might a Christmas tree just be an attempt to bring this beauty indoors?