Christmas 1960- Sitting here this morning with my Starbucks’ Veranda blonde brewed in my new Keurig single serve coffee maker, I was stuck by a memory of this year. Also folks going still to Christmas tree farms or Kroger’s or Lowe’s to buy a pre-cut tree contributed to my memory as they drive back home with their victim tied to their SUVs’ roof. School had just turned out for Christmas Break and it was the first Saturday of that we usually went and got our tree. Dad would go out in the woods and cut a fresh cedar. Some folks cut a southern pine right out of the pasture, but we loved fresh cedar and that delightful smell. That Friday evening when we got home Dad got out his small white enameled red-handled stewer (pot) and filled it with water. After bringing it to a boil he got out his Folgerss instant which he always made in the evening as perked coffee was a morning right. After making his one cup of java he goes to the phone and called Mr. (uncle I called him) Hugh Hammonds. He asked Hugh if it would be ok to go into his woods and find a tree. Uncle Hugh said yes and asked if I were going too. Still very young I had usually stayed at home and watched as well as tried to help Mom decorate the tree after Dad brought one home, but this time after the phone was hung up dad asked, “Joe, do you want to go and help me hunt for a tree tomorrow. I squealed a young child’s, “Yes!” Saturday morning at 6 am I eschewed the normal watching of Superman and Jungle Jim to go with Dad hunting for the tree. Mom got up and made breakfast so her hungry Christmas tree hunters could eat when they got back with their green game. We got in Dad’s old 1951 pinkish red Plymouth and headed about a mile down the road to the Hammonds woods. Parking on the side of the road Dad took an axe while I took a handsaw. I remember asking if they were hard to cut since we had a saw and an axe. Dad just smiled and said, “No buddy.” We walked and walked and looked and looked and it seemed like every single tree had a flaw. This one was too little. To cut that one would be wasteful. That one was right but had a big gap with a broken branch. The cows got to that one. Finally we found a 10 ft cedar. It was perfect from about 3 foot above the ground. I asked Dad, “What will we do since you said the roof is only 8 ft.?” Dad smiled and said we would cut it high. So about the top 7 ½ ‘were cut by the axe and then I saw what the saw was for. He made a smooth cut as the base with the saw to fit it better in the stand at the house. Then a few of the lower level branches were cut give a corrected shape. We carried our tree back to the car were Dad put it on top of his ladder carrier rack since he painted for extra money sometimes. As we headed back to the car, Dad had cut some pine branches and some wild Holley with red berries that grew at what was once an old home place. We got back to our house and I wanted to put the tree up then, Dad insisted we have breakfast first. Mom had prepared a plate of fried eggs with thick cut slices of slab bacon, there were also patties of Southern Bell sausage, and home-made biscuits with Dixie Lily flour. Mom’s Strawberry preserves and fresh butter with coffee topped it all off. I had coffee too, but it was a special kind more milk than coffee, shall we say Vienna style. Now today you may have a real tree or you may have an artificial one, but I would bet dollars to donuts you did not have a stand like ours. Dad asked for and got Mom’s new mop bucket. She would use an old one for the duration of the holidays. He took the tree down from the car and placed it in the bucket to hold it straight. I was told to take my small shovel and take rocks from the drive to put in the bucket for holding the tree in place. Rocks! I thought. With the rocks filling the bucket now Dad took the tree and stand to the best room in the house at Holly. Mom came in and helped to center it in the window and then I noticed a roll of aluminum foil. The foil was carefully and artfully place by Mom until we had a silvery shiny bucket on the rug. Mom then mixed up some tap water and sugar as she said it would keep the tree fresh. Now Mom took the pine and Holley and topped every picture in the place with the branches of red and green. I asked her what she was doing. “Decking the Halls,” was her reply. After this she cleaned up the kitchen while Dad put up the tools and then called Hugh to thank him for the tree and invited him and his wife Artie for coffee. Finally I saw Dad go up in the attic and bring down the decorations. The lights were in a 24” X 24” cardboard box which we had until the 1990’s. The ornaments were in a Tide box from Hightown Grocery and then stored in a padded sack. There were all glass and had been in the family since the 20’s and 30’s. Fresh tinsel and icicles were bought every year. So then we began. First the big ole multi-colored bulbs, then the tinsel, followed by the glass ornaments with the final touch of the icicles would finish out tree. We would turn the lights on and leave them on all the time while we were there. Every year was the better tree than the year before. Afterward we put our wreath on the door and a foil door cover purchased at Kuhn’s on the main door and we were set. Mom and Dad were both teachers and the children often bought them simple little gifts. They brought them home so they could write down each gift correctly and give each child a personalized thank you card when schools resumed after the first of the New Year. It always looked like a very packed tree until after Christmas. It was so full of gaiety and beauty. Ten years or so and Dad was gone and we lived at Hightown. Uncle Roy Elliott would take me to get a tree and we would go over his own land. Once in 1971 we took off at the north pasture and drove through the woods and what used to be roads until we came out on the Mattox place. He drove that Ford F-100 in places a man today with a four-wheeled drive would get stuck. Those old boys could drive. I guess it was the war, but I digress. I had fun but never like I did when I first went Christmas tree hunting with Dad. Later I went on my own. Then I got so busy I went and bought a tree and finally I gave in and bought artificial. It is sad to me that the era ended. Still you will see some going to hunt a tree. The tree farm experience may be nice, but it is just not the same. I learned the real spirit of the season with things like this. Much was made at home with love. Today we buy and buy. We buy a stand, a tree, plastic ornaments, tiny and large lights with premade displays, timers, forty kinds of tinsel, tree skirts longer than Miley’s snow storm in a can, fake hot chocolate, and over-preserved fruitcakes in brick like shape you could build a home with and still new fangled things every year. Gone or the simple days and simple ways. Gone or the people I learned so much from. I would not trade those days I lived for a century of what we have now. I guess I am getting old. I guess I miss not having my own children to take tree hunting. But I am still young at heart and that after all is what counts. May each of you have a Merry Christmas? May you all keep the true spirit of Christmas alive in your hearts?
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:48:38 +0000
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