Column by Hal Walter
Mountain Life – January 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
PERHAPS THE ONLY THING I really like about the holidays is cutting a tree and decorating it to brighten up the darkest nights of the season. But I like almost everything about this Yule tradition.
I like finding my saw in the shed. I like traipsing through the woods in search of the “perfect” tree. I like cutting the tree and dragging it back to my truck. I like fitting the tree to the stand so that it appears perfectly straight. And I like decorating the tree. And once it’s done I like the warmth it brings to the evenings, mornings and stormy days.
The only thing I do not like about this ritual is taking the tree down, traditionally on New Year’s Day, and the tedious repacking of the decorations for next year. If I had my way the tree would stay up until the evening sunlight once again lasts to well in the evening.
To me the tree is a spiritual custom — bringing a part of the natural world inside to brighten the darkest days, and also to celebrate that the days will soon grow to be noticeably longer, brighter and eventually warmer. The evergreen tree is a symbol of everlasting life, and the lights and ornaments are tokens for things we may take for granted in everyday life, from the moon and stars to animals and people. Thus adorned, the decorated tree brings a spirit of hope, renewal and wonder to our home this time of year.
For the past several years Amy Finger and Gary Ziegler have allowed me to cut Yule trees on Bear Basin Ranch. They have an area known as “Christmas Tree Lane” that is quite choked with conifer trees, and so the holiday ritual also serves as a forest-thinning project. Amy likes to have us cut down the bigger trees and then take the tops. It makes us all feel better about the fact that we are butchering innocent trees for the sake of festivity.
This December, as we have for the past two years, we packed up our son Harrison for the annual trip to Christmas Tree Lane. For the first time a tiny toboggan accompanied us. Mary pulled the boy around on the sled as I set about examining trees.
It’s become almost tradition that I cut a Christmas tree for my friend Larry, with whom I’ve worked at The Pueblo Chieftain on and off for 20-something years. I first found a tree that I thought he’d like, cut it down and topped it. It was definitely one of the nicest trees I’d ever found in those woods.
Then I went about looking for a tree for our own house. It was during this time that Harrison took a spill from the toboggan and the sounds of an unhappy little boy rang out in the woods.
Mary carried him over to the area where I had been focusing my efforts, and offered her input. Although there are about a million trees, only a very few have the desired shape. Some are thinly branched or needled. Some have bare spots and some have flat sides. And from the ground it’s difficult to judge the top of a tree that may be 15 to 20 feet tall.
At last we located a tree that looked good. Once it was on the ground it was clear that it was even nicer than the tree we had cut for Larry, and in fact was the best tree we had ever cut on Christmas Tree Lane.
WE BROUGHT THE TREES HOME and I stood them against the picnic table in front of the house so that they would not get smashed and lose their shape. I had thought to wait until the next day to bring our tree inside, but for some reason decided to pull it through the door that evening and stand it up in the living room. I left Larry’s tree outside because I planned to deliver it to him in Pueblo the following afternoon.
As our tree was being decorated a band of several deer wandered around in the snow just a few feet outside our windows. It was truly a seasonal setting. Soon our tree was festooned with lights and ornaments, lending a cheery presence to a cold, dark evening.
The next morning I found Larry’s tree had been destroyed by the deer. They had eaten nearly all of the needles from its branches. I was puzzled as to why the deer would eat this tree when the hillsides are covered with conifers. Suddenly my day had been turned topsy-turvy. Now I needed to go back to Christmas Tree Lane.
I figured I only had about an hour to spend on finding a new tree for Larry. I drove back to the area and began my search. Only this time no suitable tree could be found. I walked around and around in the woods, and twice eyed trees but decided not to cut. My hour went by and I still had not found a decent tree. I began to get frustrated.
At one point, as I studied yet another tree that I decided not to cut, a pine squirrel skittered down a trunk and squatted on a branch to look at me. Though this is hardly a pristine area, I wondered if the squirrel had ever seen a human up close and personal. I actually doubted it. I spoke to the squirrel with confidence that nobody had ever spoken to it before, then searched on.
Finally, I concluded that all of the good trees had been harvested from the immediate vicinity of Christmas Tree Lane, but decided that Gary and Amy probably would not mind if I cruised the thick woods farther to the north to find a better tree.
Deep down in a draw I spotted a tree that would do. It was taller than others I’d cut, and much thicker at the trunk. I sawed away and finally it fell over. But it landed in such a way that I could not move it in the thick growth of surrounding trees and a fair amount of criss-crossed deadfall.
One longish dead aspen trunk was really in my way so I shoved it away, and it sprang back and whacked me in the knee. For an instant I felt the joint buckle and thought I might go down. Then the knee seemed to pop quickly back into place and I stood shocked at my own stupidity.
I decided to cut Larry’s new tree in half then try to move it. However, it still would not budge. I lopped three more feet from the bottom and finally had a tree about 10 feet tall that I could move. Now all I had to do was wrestle it back up the hill through the woods without damaging it.
It took some doing, but I finally managed to get the tree back to Christmas Tree Lane, where there was enough snow to safely drag it the remaining distance uphill to my truck. My misadventure had taken a good deal more time than I had planned, and I’d become frustrated and had also had that close call with my knee.
SO I WAS STUNNED when I dragged the tree the remaining few yards and found a deer standing right next to my truck staring at me. All I could do was laugh. The joke was on me.
How many other people had the “misfortune” to go back out into the woods on this fine December day to survey dozens and dozens of evergreen trees against a blue sky. How many had spoken to a squirrel or gotten this much good, natural exercise? How many other people had found the perfect Christmas tree for a friend? And how many came back with a story like this to tell?
As the doe bounded away into the thick woods surrounding Christmas Tree Lane, I thanked her for reminding me of my good fortune. I’ll be back again next December.
Hal Walter’s decorated tree is in the home where he writes and raises burros in the Wet Mountains.
