I have a partial memory of a Christmas Tree expedition when I was a child. Our family got our trees by going into the National Forest and cutting a small tree. The process usually involved a thermos or two of hot chocolate, a brisk hike in weather that was often cold and snowy, and a bit of conversation about which tree would look best in our living room. We didn’t use a Christmas tree stand in our home. Instead, we had a huge cooking pot that was filled with sand. The bottom branches of the tree were removed so that there was a foot or more of bare trunk, which was inserted into the sand. This allowed us to keep the cut tree fresh by watering it throughout the time it was displayed in our home.

In my memory we have taken a jeep into the mountains. There were always jeeps around our parents’ business. They were used as ground support vehicles for their flying service. The first vehicle I learned to drive was a jeep. I drove it around the airport, checking perimeter and runway lights and replacing bulbs as needed several years before I was old enough to have a license to drive on the streets. The thing that is slightly confusing about my memory is that we had a large family and jeeps are not large vehicles. In order for my memory to be accurate, we must have taken more than one vehicle on this trip because our family would not all fit into a single jeep.

What I remember is that this particular jeep had a couple of front seats and in the back there were two short bench seats that faced each other. Occupants in the back rode facing sideways to the direction of travel. In my memory the Christmas tree is shoved into the back of the jeep. There is barely room for those of us in the back to sit with branches poking every direction. The back of the jeep has to be left open for the tree to stick out the back. There were no seat belts, and I don’t remember how many others were in the back, but I don’t think I was alone. I was crammed back there with others. The main thing I could see was tree branches. It was cold.

I don’t think I rode that way very often. The memory is probably of a single trip in which I rode in the back of a jeep with a tree. Memories, however, become confused after many years, so there are probably elements in the memory that come from other times when we went to cut our family Christmas Tree.

When Susan and I completed our college and graduate school educations and got settled in our first home, getting a Christmas Tree for our home became a priority. I think that we purchased a tree from a local vendor a few times, but many times in the years we lived in North Dakota we took members of the youth group down to the Slim Buttes to cut trees for our churches and our homes. The buttes had long-needled Ponderosa Pines and the smaller trees that were suitable to cutting weren’t always perfectly shaped like the trimmed noble firs that are often sold in commercial lots. The aroma of a fresh-cut tree, however, was worth the time, which usually involved driving around 80 miles round trip.

After North Dakota, we moved to Boise, Idaho, where once again we went into the forest to cut trees some years and bought our trees from lots other years. Once we moved to South Dakota, the forest was closer than town, though we liked to drive deeper into the hills to cut our tree. Like the Slim Buttes, the Black Hills have a lot of Ponderosa Pines, but we preferred to search for a place where we could cut a Black Hills Spruce tree. We liked to take at least half a day to drive up into the hills and hike away from the road in search of our annual tree.

Over the years we had many adventures, including the year when it was below zero and we had my mother along with us. When we got to the area where we cut the tree it was too cold and the snow was too deep for Mom to hike away from the car, so we found a place where we could get a tree relatively close to where we could drive. I parked off of the road and had to put chains on the vehicle to get back onto the road. Another year, Susan and I were looking for a tree when the starter on our pickup failed and we ended up spending the night in the truck before hiking eight miles to a place with a phone. Our friends came and rescued us and towed our pickup to a repair shop. We hadn’t yet cut a tree, so they helped us get one and hauled it to our home.

Over the years, we have gained a lifetime of stories and good memories.

When we retired and moved to Washington we decided that it was time for a new tradition. Although we live within a short drive of spectacular mountains with national forests, we decided to purchase live trees. Our son and his family live on a small farm with plenty of places to plant trees. One year we purchased a Douglas Fir tree. That tree is doing well and in a century or so should be over 100 feet tall. Since our son’s family also purchase trees for planting we now have a small grove of former Christmas Trees.

Last year we purchased a dwarf spruce tree that we planted in the yard of the home we live in. That has been fun and the little tree is doing well, but we don’t have much room to plant other trees in our small yard. This year’s tree is a Norway Spruce that will find a place in the growing grove at the farm. This tree will grow quickly, so might even be taller than the Douglas Fir for a few years.

We haven’t kept a formal record of our various tree expeditions, but we have established a firm family tradition. Yesterday, our little tree was ready to move from the garage to our living room. We’re just enjoying the tree for a day before we decorate it. We don’t have jeep and we wouldn’t cram it full of kids and a tree and drive it with the back opened up if we did have one, but we still are having fun creating memories.