I don’t remember my first Christmas at Route One, Phillipsburg; the Christmases of my childhood merge in my memory. We always had a cedar tree, cut from our farm. Collecting the tree put a big smile on my dad’s face, but if Mom were the cutter, she’d have more a grin than a smile. Whichever parent, the tool for the task was a sharply honed ax. My sister and I went along, so two dogs and two or five of our dozen or so cats also trailed along. The dogs easily kept up but one of the cats would somehow lag and we’d hear a mournful wroWOrrww as it protested the misadventure. All our farm creatures behaved as pack animals – cats, dogs – cows – and couldn’t seem to think for themselves if left alone.
Mom was particular about the Christmas tree. It had to be tall enough to stand on the floor in a coffee can braced with rocks, but not so tall as to brush the ceiling. It had to have limbs thick enough for her visual approval, so that the long strands of tin foil icicles used for decorating could hang at fairly even spaces. And it had to be thick enough to hold all the antique Ragland family ornaments along with the modern glass globes Mom treasured, and at least two strands of multi-colored lights.
The tree went up just a few days before Christmas. Our Laclede County, Missouri farm had no pines but myriad cedars. Nuisance trees – except for Christmas. Cedar trees dried out quickly, and since the tree went in the front room where the wood stove radiated heat for the house, it got maximum drying effect. Seems to me the tree began to drop needles the instant it went up, but the floor sweeping chores it caused were done without the usual gripes.
In recollection, it seems that the tree ritual was precipitated by the first package that arrived from the California aunts. Two of my dad’s three sisters lived in the Los Angeles area –Glendale – and two of his aunts lived in La Jolla and Long Beach. Aunt Reenie, as we called Dad’s older sister Lorena, sent the most regular packages. We’d carefully cut the twine (to save) and would rip open the brown paper outer wrapper to find three or four Christmas wrapped packages. There we’d be stopped dead in our tracks by labels on each present with cheery pictures around curt words, “Do NOT open until Christmas.” We didn’t dare. I’m not sure why, but we just knew Aunt Reenie would find out and would be so angry she’d not send anything the next year. That, or Dad’s adherence to his sister’s wishes. Or, maybe it gave Mom more leverage on behavior modification. “You’d better straighten up or you won’t get to open any of those presents on Christmas Eve. She’d let us open the aunts’ presents – the minor presents – on Christmas Eve, but we had to wait until the next day for Santa gifts.
Christmas Eve became The Major Gift Opening Time at the farm as my sister and I grew out of Santa Claus stage. Mom and Dad would be up early on Christmas morning tending to business – milking the registered Jerseys that provided our income. We could have waited until after chore time for presents, but somehow we liked the relaxed time of the evening before. Mom was probably also tired of our begging to open the minor presents and a was big kid herself with presents. Besides, daytime on the farm frequently brought new chores, some sort of minor to major emergency and always – until they succumbed to old age – time at Grandma and Grandpa Fisher’s house for lunch and presents. Thus my stronger memories of opening presents remains Christmas Eve.
One year Mom decided in early spring to start pruning a cedar that would become the most lush, full-limbed and symmetrical Christmas tree, ever. She took her large farm shears out to the hand-picked tree every three or four weeks that spring and summer. By early fall, she was pleased with the results and stopped pruning to let the tree settle into its winter mode. The daily demands of dairy farm life and fall harvest time took over our lives. The field that housed a hundred small and mid-sized cedars was ignored. The ground wasn’t fertile enough for cows to pasture there, but in the coldest parts of winter, Dad would let the cows into the field where the cedars provided some shelter from the wind. He’d deliver hay to them each day so they could continue with milk production. The cedars had to earn a living other than providing the annual Christmas tree.
Late one cold but sunny December day, a new neighbor stopped by to ask if he could maybe cut a tree for his kids. These neighbors were a bit rough-looking, poor, ill-kept but clean enough. Mom, of course, said yes. She asked if he needed to borrow the ax and something like, “Yes ma’am ifn you don’t mind, I shorly do” confirmed her suspicion. The neighbor parked his rattle trap rusty blue pickup in our driveway and walked across the road, bunched the barbed wire enough to let him straddle the fence, and walked into the cedar field.
We continued with chores. Dad or Mom split firewood each day. My sister and I had to carry it into the house. She, the older one, carried large chunks and I, the skinny little sister, carried as much kindling as I could manage. We were inside reading comic books when the neighbor carried his tree and, with a big grin, returned the ax with many thanks to Mom. I remember the outside scene vaguely, but remember vividly that Mom stormed into the house as he drove out of the yard. She said something like, “Who’d have thought that ignorant man would spy the best tree in the field. My tree. My hand-pruned tree. I couldn’t tell him no. That he couldn’t have that tree. Wouldn’t have been a Christian thing to do. But doggone if that isn’t aggravating. He cut my tree!”
My sister and I riveted on Mom’s face. Would her annoyance carry over to us? Would we have a tree that year?
Within a day or two, we did get a tree, Mom grumbling under her breath as she searched for something remotely close to looking as nice as her tree. I don’t know if she chastised herself for not trimming more than one tree, or whether she wished she’d have gone with the neighbor to choose a tree, but I clearly remember her annoyance. She wore her indignation with every step. I think that Dad might have grinned, but knew better than to say anything. It was one of those times on the farm.
