Having had an artificial tree for most of my entire adult life (click here for Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh, Mister Rain), live Christmas trees are not on my radar. The few years that I did have a real tree when I first moved out of my parents’ house, I purchased at a local church. I have never cut down my own tree.
In Port Orchard, Washington the last week of November, my husband and I drove by Stock’s tree farm a few days before Thanksgiving. All was quiet that day, but by Friday, we began to see cars with trees tied to their roofs. Another drive by the Christmas tree farm that weekend was like watching a movie: families searched through the rows of small trees, determined to find their perfect choice.
Like many books I have read, this Christmas tree farm was an escape that got me in the holiday spirit. But while these people were home, moving through their traditions of the season, Mister Rain and I were on vacation. At our own home in Pennsylvania, our new artificial tree was already up, waiting for our return. As much as I love the idea of walking through a Christmas tree farm, the smell of pine and hot chocolate heavy in the air, the Pacific Northwest mist surrounding me as though it was a soft, albeit wet, blanket, it is a work of fiction for me. Here, where the trees are real, my life is fake, while in my real life, a fake tree is the perfect choice.
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