The Last Christmas
Tree
In the summer of 1970
my family moved from our home along the banks of the Mississippi river to a
small town in western Ohio
called Celina. The disguise for the move was that there was a construction boom
going on in that area and a lot of opportunities were available for my father,
a bricklayer. But in actuality, my parents’ marriage was faltering and this was
a last attempt, away from the pressures of family and friends, to make it work.
Celina
was a different kind of town, part small town USA
with its flat, straight Main
Street that featured a movie theater, local diners
and a JC Penney store, and part summer tourist town with its proximity to the
edge of the Grand Lake St. Mary’s, touted as Ohio’s largest man made lake.
Within
months we had settled into our small, cottage like home along the lake and made
friends with many of our neighbors.
Summer
turned into fall and soon the Christmas season was upon us. Now this is where
one of the differences of my parents always came to light. My mother was a
holiday lover: Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, even Labor Day and Memorial
Day. There were always decorations to be displayed, a family gathering to arrange
or a picnic to be planned. My father was quite the opposite. A holiday for him
meant nothing more than an opportunity to get an extra day to accomplish things
at home or take in a football game on television. A man maybe ahead of his
time, he believed Christmas to be nothing more than a money making holiday for
commercial stores. Because of the expense of the recent move he was not even
sure if a Christmas tree would be affordable.
So
our new neighbors and friends - well, at least the twelvish year olds –came to
our rescue. It seems that there had been a tree nursery just blocks from our
home that was vacated when the town started to grow east, and we were assured by
our wise but pre-teen friends that it was perfectly okay to cut one of the many
pine trees down to utilize for a Christmas tree (but years later I came to
question that if it was perfectly okay, then why did we wait until well after
sunset to do it).
It
was just a couple of weeks before Christmas day when I set out by myself to
survey the nursery for that perfect Christmas tree. After combing numerous rows
I found it. Approximately six feet tall, this scotch pine was round, full and
almost had seemed manicured for the picking. I made a mental note of its
location and would come back later in the evening, along with my brother and
friends, to fetch the prize.
It
was hours later when we returned and, now in the dark of the night, I could not
locate the tree. After numerous laps through the nursery my brother grew
impatient and suggested we settle for another tree but I was insistent on the
beauty that I had seen earlier in the day.
In
disgust my brother found yet another tree and asked, again, “What about this
one?”
“That’s
it!” I exclaimed as I feasted my eyes on the wondrous piece of nature I had
spotted only hours earlier. So from under our jackets emerged saws of every shape
and size as we took to separating that perfect Christmas tree from the roots
that had given it life. And then, in almost a tag team effort, we took turns
dragging that tree on the long journey to our home to perch in its stand.
My
mother was overjoyed. My father in disbelief. He resigned himself to the tree
and issued the decree – there would be no more than one box of Christmas
ornaments and one string of lights purchased for that thing!
Still,
mother was undaunted. The Christmas tree of 1970 would become our first ever
hand crafted decoration project. Although we did have a few meager bulbs and
minimal lights on the tree the rest was decorated with hand made items and
clever ideas. We made a paper chain from green and red construction paper and
strung it around the tree. Each time my mother would open up a can of soup or
vegetables she kept the tin lids. We would take them, paint a red or green border
on the outside edges, attach a Christmas label to the center and hang it on the
tree as an ornament. And every time my mother would go to the grocery store she would slip a box of candy canes in the cart, and those of course made their
way to the yuletide centerpiece. We were awed at its beauty when completed!
And
to complete the magic, in Celina,
Ohio on Christmas day in 1970, it
snowed, giving us a perfect white Christmas!
But
our “perfect” days would soon come to an end.
By
early 1971 it was apparent that the end of the road had come for my parents’
marriage. First my mother returned home to Dubuque with my sister and in July my brother, father and I packed up our belongings and returned as well. And
although they divorced it was very amicable and we were given the freedom to
go back and forth and live with each of them. And as our childhood turned into
teen and then early adult days, we would sometimes reminisce about
Christmases past and it was always the consensus that the Christmas tree in
Ohio was the most beautiful one we ever had.
It would be 29 years
before I would return to Celina again. My wife had relatives who lived in Columbus and on a trip to
visit, I opted to skip out of a day of shopping and instead made the one
hundred mile trip back to the place I briefly called home. It’s funny how
sometimes I cannot remember a name, a face, or even where I just had set my
keys down, but making the trip back to Celina was effortless, like I had just
been there yesterday. As I rolled into town I located the street where we used
to live and made my way down. The house that we had lived in had been one of
several removed to make way for a bigger, more elaborate home, but the
neighbors who lived across the street from us all those years ago were still
there. I found the school that I had attended, met a woman at a convenience
store who I discovered was the daughter-in-law to one of my father’s old friends,
had lunch at a local diner, and, before leaving, searched out the spot where
the nursery had once been. The land was now developed and held many homes. I
parked my car where the entrance of the nursery used to be, and as I looked
down the street. It struck me how the distance from there to the spot where our
home used to be, which seemed like miles years ago, only appeared to be a
number of blocks now. In my mind I could still see us yet, my brother, our
friends and I dragging that huge tree to our house, with a light on the back
porch that seemed to tease us that it was closer than it really was. And that’s
when I had the epiphany that maybe equaled that of the Grinches on the top of Mt. Crumpit:
Maybe it wasn't the natural beauty of that tree at all that made it our all
time favorite. Maybe it had nothing to do with the shape or the fullness or
whatever. Maybe that tree, in our memory, was the most glorious one we ever had
because of the love and the care and the giving of ourselves we undertook to
make it beautiful. Maybe it was because it was the last Christmas tree that we would ever gather around as a complete family and at the time we all subliminally
knew that. And that’s the real reason why it was remembered so fondly.
All of the family
members have moved on now. Marriage and careers have taken my siblings and
father to other parts of the country. And in the infant days of 2002, my mother
passed on to, hopefully, a more peaceful place. Only I am left to walk the
streets of Dubuque, which at one time we all called home, and I have
inherited the love of the holidays from my mother. Now, as my wife and I
raise our own children, hopefully I am helping give them Christmases as memorable,
but not as bittersweet, as mine are with the Last Christmas Tree.
Author Michael J. Lenstra (far right) with siblings
in front of The Last Christmas Tree
About the author: Michael J. Lenstra is a monthly columnist for the Disc Jockey News, owner of
Alexxus Entertainment and a full time wedding entertainer in Dubuque, IA
