Our tree-getting expedition has gotten progressively less Instagram-worthy over the years.
We used to take the girls way out into the gorgeous Glen Ellen mountains when they were small.
It was a 45 minute drive through vineyards and foggy hills before we started the mountain climb. The view from the moment we exited our car felt like a breath.
We had truly arrived.
We would hunt for the perfect tree to cut ourselves, as we sipped hot apple cider from the barn stand.
I would dress the girls all in coordinating things, (back before any protesting of such things ever started) and I would tell them to “smile for a picture. Leave your sister alone. OK. Now, everyone…Tessa? Tessa? Look up here!”
This was back before they even knew how to roll their eyes, or try to run.
Just four adorable girls with rosy smiles.
After several years of this tradition, though, that tree farm burnt down in a massive wildfire.
Suddenly, there was no longer a barn, or a bench, or any trees; Only blackness, and the memory of what we used to do back then.
For a few years we tried several other tree farms, but the trees weren’t that good, and I couldn’t see paying $100 for them, so I’d line the girls up for just a photo at a local tree farm,
and then we would load up in our still-empty truck, and actually get our tree from the firehouse, where all proceeds from sales went to the firemen.
It seemed kind of fitting: A way of paying our respects to that tree farm they had tried so hard to defend; But it still wasn’t the same. I merely settled for those pre-cut trees,
But my heart still remembered the glory days of Moon Mountain.
I could still feel the twigs snap, I could feel the air as I overlooked the valley, I could see four brightly dressed girls giggle and disappear way up ahead.
Once the girls did learn about rolling their eyes, and trying to run from family fun of all kinds,
we even gave up on the firehouse trees. Who am I to force them?
We heard Costco had them for at least $25 less, so we shrugged, and would go from our fake-out tree farm photo to just get one from them.
Last year Costco got rid of its garden center completely.
They sold trees from a grey metal shipping container.
Yay! Bring on the cheer!
This year we skipped the tree farm completely, and went straight to the Costco shipping container.
I guess we’ve now completely cut out that aesthetic middle-man.
I picked the first tree I saw.
We were practically in and out before I could have counted to 20.
My oldest daughter and her husband (who usually go to get their tree with us) had skipped out on a full-sized tree this year. They now have a toddler, and in an effort to keep her alive, they had chosen one she could not reach or eat.
As we paid I felt their absence.
My 16 year old had to work the day we went, so there were just four of us walking up to that giant metal container then.
We had been whittled.
No one had even worn a festive sweater. We didn’t even take one photo of us choosing the tree. The girls and Justin cheered at how easy that was!
I just smiled silently.
They didn’t need to know…They couldn’t understand how hard it is for a mom to have had those Mountaintop Christmases and to slowly have to let go of them.
They don’t know that moms store so many of their precious memories
with the ornaments in those old bursting Christmas bins:
The construction paper snowman with his crooked smile,
all the little kid photo ornaments with funny expressions that the school sent,
the plaster-cast palms, the candy cane reindeer now missing an eye with both of his antlers all bent…
It all may look like nothing much to anyone else,
but the essence of my entire motherhood lives in them.
The foam gingerbread woman my youngest, Paige, made when she was four, that she carried around for all of December that year. That gingerbread woman did every single thing that she did, and it seems extra fitting, knowing this, that her permanent expression is one of shock and fear.
All of us know that’s the expression anyone would make if bound to a four year old Paige.
Gingerbread woman has seen some things.
Witnessing her being unearthed every year is like greeting an old, understanding friend.
When I see trees on Pinterest all coordinated and crisp, I do love to look at, and admire them, but I will never have that kind of tree.
After all, I could never abandon all my crayon manger scenes.
That scribbled hay also welcomes me.
That’s where the true Christmas Magic is.
It swirls from all the things that got glued with little tongues peeking out.
That one-eyed reindeer is giving a knowing wink!
While my family was happy about how quick we got the tree and got out,
in my heart and in my silence, I was contemplating:
This is why mothers often appear so tired.
They are holding in so much more love and connection to things than you think.
In my heart Christmas is about slowness, and wonder.
It is about wide-eyes, and little bellies full of fresh-baked treats.
To most people this is just a story about where we got our tree through the years,
but to me, this is a story about remembering that, though things may change
(The traditions, the people in your photos, the level of festivity)
I know my heart will always long for those Mountaintop Christmases in that barn while four small girls all begged for candy canes, and those days live on now in bright colored construction paper bits, scattered all over a gloriously uncoordinated tree.
The whole world can have the hustle, and noise it seems to love.
I’ll take a quiet moment tonight in the dark, by the light of a Costco tree, to ponder how life really is about adapting to all kinds of change,
and how I believe that true Christmas Magic is actually just a reviving of all of our best memories.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
