{"id":20184,"date":"2014-12-04T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T08:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=20184"},"modified":"2014-12-04T00:01:36","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T08:01:36","slug":"the-perfect-christmas-tree-i-finally-found-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-perfect-christmas-tree-i-finally-found-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Christmas Tree — I Finally Found It"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rows<\/a>
A Christmas tree farm. Photo: liljulier\/flickr via Creative Commons<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall, The Oakland Tribune, Dec. 24, 1989<\/em><\/p>\n

Christmas trees. Some of my most intense childhood memories have to do with Christmas trees. When I say intense, I\u2019m not talking magic \u2013 I don\u2019t mean twinkling lights and \u201cJoy to the World.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking galoshes. Galoshes caked with mud and slush. Fingers and toes numbed by the December cold.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking driving the family Ford from Christmas tree lot to Christmas tree lot in the Sunday afternoon darkness, my father and brothers and I growing ever more desperate in our search for the perfect tree.<\/p>\n

I think of driving home, windows open, my arm and my brother\u2019s arm stuck out into the sub-freezing night, our mittened hands gripping the tree by its sticky trunk.<\/p>\n

I think of my father driving the dark, slippery streets, taking care not to make the sudden move that would loosen our grip and throw the tree into oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n

I think of the disappointed silence in the car. Once again, we had settled on a tree that was less than perfect.<\/p>\n

We were a tough group to satisfy, of course. My mother, who waited at home, dreamed of a full tree, a big one. So did we kids. My dad dreamed of something smaller, something more within budget. What we generally brought home was a balsam fir from the forests of Canada, a scraggly thing by today\u2019s standards, thin of trunk and sparse of bough, and always a little on the short side.<\/p>\n

\"A
The perfect Christmas tree of our dreams.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Canadian wild, a balsam fir sapling had to compete with its peers and elders for sunlight. The competition made it gappy. Here, an empty spot. There, an oversized branch. The trees of old never quite compared to the plump and opulent Christmas trees we saw on holiday greeting cards.<\/p>\n

Our tree, inevitably, leaned this way or that. When placed in its stand in front of the living room window, the light of day shone right through it, betraying the tree\u2019s true, spindly form.<\/p>\n

But things have changed since my Detroit childhood. The 1980s have produced \u2013 along with perestroika and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle \u2013 the perfect Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

The perfect Christmas tree is now a dime a dozen and $45 apiece. Thanks to machetes and gas-powered hedge clippers, the 1989 tree is shaped to a flawless cone. Just like in the pictures.<\/p>\n

Typically, this comely tree is a Douglas-fir. The Douglas-fir is the No.1-selling tree in California today, according to Sharon Burke of the California Christmas Tree Growers Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is not a true fir tree. It is a Pseudotsuga menziesii and it is grown on tree farms. Once or twice a year it is shorn of its nonconforming twigs and branches. This makes for a thicker trunk and denser braches, says Burke. One sweep of an 8-foot hedge clipper and, presto, the ideal tree.<\/p>\n

Trouble is, these new-fangled trees are so plump and bristling with branches and needles that there is precious little space left over for our ornaments.<\/p>\n

Ornaments should dangle. There should be space between branches for dangling. But no. Now that the perfect Christmas is a reality \u2013 for those who can afford the $45 \u2013 decorating a Christmas tree is more like decorating a toilet bowl brush.<\/p>\n

Ornaments don\u2019t dangle from these perfect trees. Sometimes ornaments won\u2019t even stay put. They pop out sideways and fall to the floor.<\/p>\n

At our house, it\u2019s Jon\u2019s job \u2013 like my father\u2019s before him \u2013 to take the kids out to buy the Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

While they\u2019re gone, I dig around the basement \u2013 like my mother before me \u2013 for the tree stand, ornaments and ornament hooks. And like my mother before me, I usually find that once again I am short on hooks.<\/p>\n

\"Nob;e<\/a>
In 2014, at the time of this posting, noble fir trees were selling for around $80 apiece at the Orchard Nursery in Lafayette, California. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, this year, Jon had bills to pay. My father\u2019s job fell to me.<\/p>\n

I pried Peter and Christina loose from their dreidel game. They had found the Hanukkah tops packed away with the Christmas cr\u00e8che and were spinning for the Holy Family. Nun <\/em>gets you nothing. Gimmel<\/em> gets you Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus.<\/p>\n

At the Christmas tree lot, the children played hide \u2019n\u2019 seek amid the Scotch pines, leaving me to choose the 1989 tree on my own. The responsibility weighed heavy.<\/p>\n

I walked past the pines, the Douglas-firs, the plantation firs, and the toilet bowl brushes. Nothing looked right.<\/p>\n

But what was that over there? A stand of noble firs. A merry patch of old-fashioned Christmas trees.<\/p>\n

A wide one with graceful branches caught my eye. The pale December sun shone right through its slender limbs as in days of yore. Its trunk crooked from left to right and left again. On one side, a branch was missing.<\/p>\n

I stood it up next to me for the litmus test. Sure enough. It was too short.<\/p>\n

Perfect. I had found my tree.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 1989 The Oakland Tribune<\/a>\u00a0 Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
The 2010\u00a0 Christmas tree at our house. This one held some very special envelopes in its boughs. Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Rows<\/a><\/p>\n

At the Christmas tree lot, the kids played hide \u2019n\u2019 seek amid the trees, leaving me to find the perfect Christmas tree. The responsibility weighed heavy. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[146,35,36,1148,34,1284,1361,29,55,82,56],"class_list":["post-20184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-christina","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-trees","tag-detroit","tag-dont-miss","tag-falconers","tag-holidays","tag-jon","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-peter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}