Christmas tree hunting

I was moved by my sister’s piece in this coming Vermont Observer remembering very sweetly that our cranky old artist father had created wood-cut home-made C’mas cards that we painted in the colors with our own individual water color sets. One year he created an x-massy scene on the living-room wall with pastels. But the tradition that I remember now that had escaped me for years because it was just the way things were done at our house, was setting out the silver martini set for Senor Claus with my father’s favorite cheese (Liederekranz) and crackers. That it was gone in the morning goes without saying. Licked clean.

In the happy days of the fifties (not counting Korea, the cold war and polio), C’mas still held much of its charm. Though, I can never remember it being “magical” or that any part of it mattered as much as the loot under the tree, I herewith acknowledge that I loved the C’mas music that seemed to encourage the anticipation of the big day. And the outdoor decorations kind of confirmed that the great event was at hand. Mistletoe, however, appealed to the seamier side, the prurient and pimpled teenager say, who wanted something you don’t put on Santy’s list: sex.

I spent a couple of December 25ths in the army overseas. Germans were way into Sinter Klaus (or any holiday) and can’t nobody party like they do. But the barracks were devoid of the trimmings and there was never a tree for presents.

When I became a father, the spirit of the event came back and it was fun to get the kids worked up. In tiny little Freedom, not far from here, we had a big old farm house and we could cut our tree in the dense woods behind our field. I once made a tree-top star out of alu foil and I still have it, as I do some of the tree clingers Sonny Boy Jim made in grammar school. One year I traded Lance Cloutier a case of mustard (I was a mustard magnate during the ‘80s) to fashion a wrought iron hoop (see TSJ adverts) so that we could make our own barn wreath every year.

Going after the tree became a writable event when we all had kids of or around the age of believing, sort of. We had a tradition of going up to Jackson and meeting at the Lodi’s who had god knows how many kids at that point. Paul had one of the ur four door pick up trucks and we would load it up with giddy kids and groggy grown ups; saws and an ax; and of course a shot gun. We were in fact Christmas tree hunting.

In those days you were allowed to drive with open containers of eggnog as long as you were having fun and stayed off the main roads. Paul had the key to the National Forest. (Anybody who doesn’t know Lodi might ask, “How the hell did he get that key?” All of us who know him say, “How the hell did he get that key?”). The truck had four wheel drive and we would go up the unplowed trail till we couldn’t. Some of us had flasks in case the nog gave out. And there was always a whiff of spliff, if you were tall enough.

The main difference between a National Forest and a tree farm is the height of the trees. There aren’t a lot of short ones up in Carter Notch so we would cut down taller ones and make them smaller. The shotgun came in handy for knocking the tops off the real beauties standing tall against the sky. These usually turned out to be skimpy upon closer inspection and were discarded. Once, full of bravado (manufactured by Hennessy) I climbed up inside the branches of a spruce (I think it was blue), with my trusty buck-saw, because Flower (we were hippie to the core) wanted a particular top for her living room. I ascended slowly and painfully but committed. I descended rapidly and painfully and should have been committed. Down feathers from my new parka fell like, down feathers. But I got what I wanted, a mittened applause and some unsympathetic laughter. I don’t even remember if I got the top of tree. And our lovely Flower is no longer here to remind me.

C’mas trees are an obstreperous bit of biology. Their DNA is wired to fall over with the least bit of physics being involved. Once, I tethered a fully dressed one so that it could not possibly fall over only to wake up those still sleeping, with my obscenities, when I discovered early one morning on the way out the door for work, that what I know about securing a tree’s verticality could be written on a piece of tinsel.

Two things I miss still are the free eggnog at Carroll Reed’s on C’mas eve. One of my high school honies worked there and would spike ours, back when it was okay to do so, but only on that special eve. The other was that Horsefeather’s would special order oysters for us and we would pile in with our gin-cherried noses and make an afternoon of it before going off to the five and dime next door for cheapo stocking stuffers, because Ben and Brian had absorbed all our shopping funds.

Much about C’mas has changed, the main thing being me. I can’t fit a tree in my fuel efficient car and putting up the thing is now almost the chore it is to take it down. No matter how clever I think I am at putting things away the year before, they don’t seem to be where I thought. Going to parties requires too much planning, and driving after one is now forbidden. Nobody wants to hear my rendition of A Child’s Christmas in Wales any more, and I’m not all that keen on listening to little whosit scrape out an ear piercing version of Good King What’s His Face on his violin.

But still, I made the punch for the library party again, there’s snow on the ground and we’ve candles in the windows. There are half gallons of the good stuff for when T & D come up from Fla. and there’ll be three nights of dinner parties right here, with all kinds of cheery souls who will "help" cook and break dishes. No need to be a grumpy grandpigge. I can do this. And for all the sneering cynicism you read in The Jacket, I’m almost sure that the fat man, “Knows if you’ve been naughty or nice/ so be good for goodness’ sake.”