By Russ Stewart – Victoria, B.C.
William Shakespeare wrote about the seven stages (acts) of man. As far as my wife and I are concerned, the stages of our lives can be measured in Christmas trees.
If we wanted a Christmas tree when we were young, we went into the bush and cut one. We decorated it with homemade decorations and perhaps a few carefully preserved store-bought items.
Because there was no electricity at either home or school, the only lights we had were the little candles in the clip-on metal holders. Even when electricity was available, some people, especially those from some European traditions, eschewed electric tree lights. They continued to use candles in spite of the obvious fire hazard. This ritual was very important to them.
Going to the woods for our tree continued to be an important part of our Christmas as our family grew. We’d dress warmly and drive to a commercial tree farm. One of the older boys would carry the axe and after much tramping around and arguing the merits and demerits of several trees, one would finally be selected.
Homegrown made it special
We’d cut it down and bring it home to dry out for a few days before it was set on a stand, strung with lights, and festooned with stored decorations and a few new baubles. If no farm was convenient, we’d buy our tree from a city lot.
One year, when we were living in the southern United States, it was so warm when we went to the shopping centre that the butts of the trees were marking the asphalt they were standing on. When we got our tree home we found it had a label on it telling us that it had been grown in Canada. That made it a little special.
Eventually the children grew and flew, and we moved into a city condominium. We abandoned the live tree ritual and bought an artificial tree with wire branches that fitted into a central spine. Every year I dutifully unpacked it, set it up, strung the lights on it, and vacuumed up the plastic “needles” it had shed. My wife would decorate it in the traditional way.
A couple of years ago, we happily entered the final chapter of the Christmas tree story. We retired the plastic tree and bought a little tabletop tree with permanent lights and decorations. Just take it out of the box and plug it in. After Christmas unplug it and put it back in the box and voila, the job’s done for another year.
