O Tannenbaum!
by Julie Clark Salmon
Posted with permission of the author.
All my life, I wanted the biggest Christmas tree. In my dreams, my tree reached the ceiling and touched all four walls. My older brother and sisters and I, along with my parents, would trudge through the muddy snow of one parking lot after another in suburban New York, assessing trees. If I begged and whined long enough, my father would succumb and buy the tallest tree on the lot. “Oh for God’s sake, let’s just get this one and get out of here,” he’d grumble, and my heart would soar. With a lot of tinsel and — one magical year — a rotating color light wheel, I was satisfied.
The quest for the perfect tree has continued into my adulthood. Sadly, I left my childhood home — oh ye of the 10-foot-ceilings — and moved into a bungalow. Really tall trees became a thing of the past. Still, I persevered, dragging my husband and one, two, then three children through forests and fields in search of a tree worthy of being called “Our Christmas Tree.” No parking lots for us anymore; in Oregon, we chop down our own trees.
We crammed all sorts of trees into our little living room over the years. Each time, I tried to feel satisfied, usually murmuring my grandmother’s words well-etched into my heart: “I think this is the best tree we’ve ever had.” But I didn’t really believe it.
Until the Christmas my father died. That year, I had tried to make up for the melancholy I felt during his illness by creating the best Christmas ever in our home in Oregon. We drove from one Christmas tree farm to another, again schlepping through mud and ice, until finally my son Matt’s voice rang out “THIS IS IT! I FOUND IT!”
And he had. It wasn’t that tall — it couldn’t be, remember? But it was fat. Fatter than Santa Claus. Fatter, in fact, than the Jeep we had to carry it home on. But, no matter. My beleaguered husband, Jim, hauled it (with the help of three strong men) to the top of the car and off we sped.
Once home, we couldn’t get the tree into the house. Jim (no longer my hero) abandoned it on the sidewalk. “The birds can have it!” he yelled at me before slamming the front door. Still I persevered. I called my friend, Polly. The next day she and I bungeed-corded the tree tightly together and rammed it through the front door, taking some of the door molding with it. Then we couldn’t get it into the tree stand. I called another friend, Greg — an unsuspecting fellow down the street– and he came over and did the deed, sweating like the champion he was. We propped it against the wall, secured it tightly with reams of fishing line, and stood back to admire it. “That is one hell of a tree,” Greg said, in awe. Polly and I nodded. True, it was short (I was beginning to realize someone had lopped off the top of it for a smaller tree) but its branches spread almost from wall to wall. To me, it was a thing of glory. When Jim got home he could only say, “Wow.”
That night the call came in that my dad had died. We headed to Virginia, where my parents had moved, the next day. We never got to sit around our big, fat tree. It stood, alone and grand, in front of our living room window. I later heard a steady stream of neighbors peeked in to marvel at it during our absence. It was dead when we returned home, a week later.
But that isn’t the end of the story. When we arrived at our parent’s house — my brother, sisters, our spouses and kids — we found ourselves facing Christmas without our dad and without a tree. This would not do. My grieving mother remembered a little tree outside, the one she and my dad had decorated with lights for neighboring farmers to see. “Bring that one in,” she suggested. “I’ll bring down the old ornaments.”
We decorated the tree, about the size of my youngest child, with ornaments from our childhood. “Here’s Mom’s first ornament!” I held up a tiny globe so weathered by age it had lost all its color. “Here’s mine!” my brother, Champie, held up a jaunty toy soldier. My sister, Genna, unearthed an old box of tinsel. “Oh my gosh! I think this kind has actual lead in it!” We let the kids throw it on liberally. We sat in front of that tiny tree and talked about our dad and our childhood Christmases. “Remember when Champie shot Dad with Robot Commando?” my sister, Jane, laughed. “Remember the rotating color light wheel? Remember coming down the stairs, age order, singing ‘Silent Night’?”
That Christmas, sitting with my family around a tree I would never have selected myself (not in a million years), I learned something. It’s not the size of the tree that matters; it’s the people who sit around it.
I don’t really care what my tree looks like anymore, as long as I can gather a few friends and family together to share memories and create new ones.
Julie Clark Salmon is a writer, who was a classmate of mine in grade school; we renewed our acquaintance last year for our class’s 50th reunion. She posted this on Facebook, and I liked it enough that I asked her permission to post it on Medium. With the photo of the ill-fated titular tree, of course!
You can read more things from Julie on her website: https://www.juliaclarksalmon.com. You can also find out about her plays and read her bio.
No matter that I’m not famous, no matter that I have no giant achievements to claim, I have a lot to say about life. In addition to writing memoir for a number of publications, I am currently in the process of developing a play, a film, and a book (or two). I may be in the last chapter of my life but I hope to make it the best one. I know a good ending when I read it. Or, in this case, write it.
I’ve posted things written by Deb (current wife) and Linda (previous wife) before, because I only marry good writers. I guess I wanted to show I knew good writers back in the day, as well. 😊
