Appalachian Christmas

When I was 7, I took to our farm to find a Christmas tree. Too poor to buy our own from the gas station in town, I figured the next best option was one right off our own farm. Cedars grew wild in the Greenbrier Valley, dotting the edges of brush in the margins of our fields. I picked one, that, looking up with my 7-year-old eyes, was what I thought to be about 6 feet tall. 

    Every day after school, I would take to the fields, walking past the ponds and cattle lots that hugged our farm house and venture into the great beyond of the vastness of our 1,250 acre farm. In the corner of a sink hole and a small hill, my hand-picked cedar tree stood tall and strong, waiting for its final purpose: our Christmas tree. 

    I fashioned my Swiss Army Knife from my pocket. My paw-paw had given me the contraption the prior Christmas and it had become my survival essential tool. It would protect me from coyotes, bears, bobcats, and those evil chupacabras and lizard humanoids that were all over Unsolved Mysteries that my mom would watch, only for me to catch the crisis' unfolding in the world with my peering eyes. 

    Today though, the Swiss Army Knife was my Christmas tree cutter. I had one of the fancy versions, called the "Huntsman" that was equipped with a woodsaw. It was usually confiscated by our Principal, Mr. Upton at school, but I did find other uses for it, such as this. I knew how to use a woodsaw proper, but it was verboten for me to access grown-man tools. My dad had banned me from all the tool sheds, work trucks, and tool boxes farm-wide. He said something about being destructive and breaking and misusing tools, but for me, it was just an excuse to make me work harder to do the things I wanted to do. 

    Like get a Christmas tree. 

    I had set up my operation rather perfectly. Before leaving the house once home from school,  I would grab a fistul of walnuts, brazil nuts, and almonds from the nutcracker dish. We only ever had nuts in the house during Christmas. Just the same, an orange in my pocket from the sack of navel oranges, a true delacacy that we only enjoyed during Christmas time. 

    I set out the house inconspicuously in my "work britches" and an old ratty jacket. With any luck, my mom would burn the bean soup and cornbread she was making and it'd push supper past sunset. I skipped over the calving lot and into the bull pen, careful to avoid making eyecontact with Big Sammy, our Simmental bull who was the size of a work truck, I would quickly hop the barbed wire barrier into the lot beyond before he could pivot to inspect my trespassin' on his turf. After about a quater mile hike of the field, I arrived at my cedar tree. 

    I would flip open my swiss army knife to the sawblade and start hacking at the tree. I would watch the sun retreat to a pink-yet-sultry sunset. I was forbidden to be out in the outer lots of the farm after dark; coyotes and such. I didn't fear coyotes as much as I did the chupacarbra, though. I would grip my neck at the mere thought of it sucking the blood out of me like it did Farmer Yate's goat over yonder in the farming village of Pickaway.

    I was going to be next, I knew it.

     I would take a breather every couple minutes or so. My Swiss knife would get warm from the friction of the cedar's earthy wood grain. I'd give it a break too, and flip it to the small knife blade, which was perfect for prying open a Brazil Nut, my favorite nut of all time. 

    Back to work, I would examine my progress. I was behind schedule. I had thought this tree would be felled in two evenin's of cutting, but here it was, day 4, and I was only about halfway through the darn thing. This was going to take much longer than I thought. I knew come Saturday I could have it down, but that was only a week before Christmas. I wanted to actually enjoy the Christmas tree. 

    Being behind schedule, I pushed my limits with the darkness and snuck in through the back door, as if I had snuck past the television earlier in the evening and was lost in the chaos of four young'uns running amuck in the house. Sly as a farm mouse, I thought I was being evasive and getting away with my latest ploy to give my dad a headache. 

    On day 5, I was busy at my nightly work when my mom's schrewed voice scoured my daydreaming and routine. "What are you doing?!"

    My blue eyes froze like January ice. What was she doing here? And, how did she find me? My plan was foiled. She was going to make me stop cutting the tree and if with any luck, that would be it. No whippin' for being sly and sneakin' around. 

    She examined my work. "Young'un, this tree is too big!" 

    She somehow knew exactly what I was doing, and what the intended purpose was for. 

    "No!" I stammered back. "It's six feet tall! Just like the ones at Top 'O The Hill!" I referenced the local convenience store by name. 

    She shook her head and began trotting back to the house. She didn't tell me to stop; but she didn't offer to give me a breather and cut on it for me, neither. Alas, back to work. 

    Just as the sun was painting the sky a frosty pink hue, the familiar sound of a tractor was within ear shot. 

    She didn't. 

    Not only did mom not offer to help, but she told my dad, who was surely going to pitch a fit. I quickly hid my knife and started strolling around the area, as if aloof to the fact I was a quarter mile from the house at sunset.

    As the tractor made way through the last gate, my dad's cold blue eyes locked onto mine and a sense of dread came over me. He was going to ask what I was doing. I could lie, and hope mom didn't tell him what I was up to. Or I could scorn him for not getting me a Christmas tree like I asked two weeks ago. 

    Instead, he asked nothing, he hopped off the tractor and pulled a Stihl chainsaw from the tractor's cab. He, too, was aware of my lollygagging around these parts and had brought along the coveted grown-man tool. He whipped the chainsaw to life with a single whip of the crank cord and within two seconds, my cedar tree fell to the earth. 

    I examined it with him. Mom was right, it was more like twelve feet instead of six. 

    Dad quickly garbled the saw to the cedar wood and began ferociously chomping it down to size, tossing the excess cedar log into the brush. I looked on. A week's worth of frustrating Swiss army-knifing effort was placated with mere seconds of chainsawing. 

    Nobody really said anything to me about why I was cutting our own Christmas tree. No recourse, either. In fact, once back at the house, mom made me some fresh hot chocolate in the tea kettle on the wood stove; it always tasted better when the milk just-boiled over the wood stove versus out of the old skillet on the electic stove. 

    I sat in the floor and anxiously waited for dad to finish trimming the tree to make it work. I had wished for one of those fancy trees from the gas station, as the cedar was prickly and it's branches tawny and briddle, but we did manage to fix ornaments to the branches. Many of them were heavy and ornery in design, heirlooms from as far back as the 1940s. Our newer ornaments were vain creations from the latest Disney movies I was infatuated with, like Lion King. 

    That night, I sat up way past bedtime and basked in the aura of the christmas lights. The tree was analogous to my effort. Although dad felled the tree for me, I felt my hardwork glowed in the amber and muscato hue of the christmas lights. Dad defended his decision to forgo a christmas tree because, "when he was my age", they didn't put up a tree until Christmas eve. But it was December 15th! And this was 1995 - not 1965!

     I was going to enjoy Christmas like all the kids at school did. 

    Just as well, I peeled another navel orange, the sweet aroma of the orange zest tickled my nostrils as it mixed with the spicy aroma of the cedar pine in our living room; I swear it's a smell that zens to the tune of a Christmas carol so etheral to the Christmas season for me to this very day. 

    I didn't care that I wouldn't have much under the Christmas tree. For me, the joy of Christmas was in the tree itself. The hue of the lights, the tradition, the beauty and warmth that radiated from the mere pine itself. A comfort in the cold of winter. If with any luck, the Angel Tree or the Union Fire Station Christmas Drive would get me my top-gift: a Lion King Action Figure Set. Otherwise, I would make do with what I got last Christmas, adding in whatever few toys dad could afford us on Christmas Day into the symbolical meet-and-greet of my new toys with my old toys. 

    I knew many of the kids at school were bartering for the futuristic Sony Playstation. I knew such contraptions would never be under our tree, I was fine settling for just a few new Matchbox cars (Hotwheels were trash; I said what I said) to replace the ones I had broken in the dirt over the preceding year, and of course, my Lion King Action Figure Set. 

     In the least, I thought, we had the Christmas tree. 

    Part of this post is an excerpt from the upcoming book, "Laurel Creek Grove" by Nathan O'Discin published by Ingram Books.