I assisted my elderly parents recently with the installation and the trimming of their Christmas tree. It brought back many fond memories of when we all trimmed the tree together as a family when I was a child. Sometimes we went to our own wood lot and selected a tree and cut it down. Other years, we bought the tree ready cut. On the trek through the woods or on the way home from the seasonal tree yard, my father unfailingly regaled us each year with stories of cutting fir and spruce trees with his dad. 

Like most Vermonters of that era, my grandfather wore many “hats”. He quarried by day and farmed and logged evenings and weekends.  In late fall he augmented his logging earnings by cutting evergreen trees that were shipped to places like New York City and Boston, where city dwellers, far from sprawling, forested hillsides, would pick out a tree for their Christmas celebrations.  My dad would tell us how he and his dad and brothers cut trees suitable to be called a Christmas tree (No Charlie Brown trees.), bundled them into groups of six and tied them up in netting.  My grandfather received the kingly sum of 25 cents for each bundle of trees he delivered.  It just wasn’t Christmas until I heard dad tell that story. 

My parents are older now. As I assisted them with their tree, they picked out a CD called “1940s Christmas” and we listened to Christmas songs with a swing beat as we trimmed the tree and sipped hot cocoa. All of their ornaments hold a special meaning, like the blown glass ornaments my grandparents hung on their tree when they celebrated their first Christmas together as a married couple in 1915 and the ornaments my sister and I made as children. Those ornaments deemed unlikely to survive the youthful exuberances of their great-grandchildren were placed high on the tree. Newer, more excitement-proof balls, bells and doodads were hung lower on the tree. Our conversation was punctuated by such observations as “Oh, we bought those the year your sister was born” and “You made that when you were in third grade.” Even the tinsel is a tradition in my parents’ home. Like most Vermonters, they are practical and frugal. We denuded our tree each year of all tinsel before discarding it for two reasons—to protect the birds from it and because there is no need to throw away perfectly good tinsel. Every year the tinsel was “recycled.”  Vermonters were ”green” long before it was fashionable.  I suspect that most of the tinsel we placed on that tree the other day dates back to Eisenhower’s second administration. And it still looks just as good today. 

Whether you and your family celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan or some other special season, we here at Rock of Ages wish you days filled with the love and laughter of family and friends. Savor some old traditions and start some new ones.  Have a joyous and peaceful 2012.