O Christmas tree

As a child I thought all Christmas trees were cedar trees. Growing up in Middle Tennessee we lived with a background of Redcedars. My uncle owned the Lumber Yard in town and every year, in early December, he brought us our Christmas tree—always a cedar.

Though traditionally cedars are cone shaped, ours always seemed to be asymmetrical and wobbly. Sometimes we had to fasten the tree to the wall to make it stand straight. The leaves were dark green, closely packed, sharp, and prickly. To add to its lack of beauty my uncle, for some unknown reason, always cut off the top of our Christmas tree leaving it flat and square. As a result, the Star or Angel that topped our tree did not majestically look down on us from a lofty peak but rather peeped out somewhere near the top amid a bramble of branches.

Our decorations on the tree were simple. We had a string of lights and colored balls. Every year we lost a few balls in the cedar’s dense leaf structure. If my sister or I had had a crafty school teacher that year there might also be paper chains or strings of cranberries on the tree. And LOTS of tinsel. Does anyone use tinsel anymore? I never see it in the stores. My sister and I had great fun flinging fistfuls of tinsel until we covered our cedar tree.

Though glorious to a child, it was never a beautiful Christmas tree. But Oh the luscious aroma! Nothing can compare with the smell of fresh cut cedar. The spicy, woodsy fragrance filled our whole house at Christmas time. To this day just to get a whiff of cedar says “Christmas” to me.