Waiting for Christmas ~ December 14, 2000

David Heiller

The thermometer read six degrees below zero on Sunday afternoon. I headed for the woods with a folding saw and tape measure in my coat pocket.

The wind had died and the sun was shining, and six degrees below zero didn’t seem so bad, not on a Sunday afternoon in December.

Even MacKenzie, one of our dogs, seemed improved by it. She had lain in the house all weekend, walking on three legs. Noah said he had seen her come up limping after a race with our other dog, Sully.

Mollie wanted us to call the veterinarian. Cindy and I thought we should wait.

Could this be the same MacKenzie on Sunday afternoon, running through the woods ahead of me, with barely a limp to see? She couldn’t resist the beautiful brisk day. Mother Nature is a quick healer.

I walked along the north line of our property, looking for a Christmas tree. There’s a white spruce that would do. But only as a last resort. They lose their needles too fast. We’ve had a few holidays where the tree looks like something only Charlie Brown could love by Christmas. Needles fall like an avalanche every time you brush against it.

I walked west, past big oak trees and sugar maples and poplars and some scraggly balsams. I came to a low spot. My boots hit ice, broke through, hit water. Mud and branches held me fast for a minute. The weather would have to get a lot colder to harden the wet spots.

The land opened up where loggers had done their work about 10 years ago. Ah hah. A beautiful balsam. Almost a perfect shape. A little bottle neck near the top, but a heavy dose of lights and ornaments as only Cindy can administrate would cover that. I’d give it a nine out of ten.

But my nose was into the wind. I could smell a better tree, the way a fisherman can sense when a fish is ready to strike. I kept walking; balsams were everywhere, all shapes and sizes.

Then there it was. A ten. Not too fat. Not too bushy. I took the tape measure out of my pocket Just the right height, nine feet, six inches of perfect tree.

Not Bork Tree farm perfect, mind you. But it would do for the back 40.

Malika and MacKenzie and our back 40 tree.

I unfolded the saw and cut the tree down. Yes, I felt a twinge of regret. A living organism and all that. But there were 10,000 more trees within eye sight of this one. And what joy it will bring to us!

I dragged it to the road in the woods, then walked back to the house and roused Noah off his easy chair. The Vikings weren’t playing for another hour. He grumbled a bit, then put on some heavy clothes. We trudged back to the tree and carried it the quarter mile to its new home

I trimmed another six inches off the stump and cut off a few bottom branches. Then we set it in the stand in the living room. Perfect.

Getting the tree was good for me, because I felt some of the Christmas spirit return for the first time in about 11½ months. It’s been missing for me, and I worry that someday going to be such a crotchety old man that I’m not going to be able to find it.

I found a part of it when I found the Christmas tree. It snuck in with the. cold and sun, with the dogs racing through the woods and the chickadees flitting in the branches, and my son walking by my side. It was written in the snow by deer and mice and squirrels.

We are always waiting for something, Pastor Laura said at church Saturday night. A first kiss, graduation, marriage, children, a new job, a promotion, retirement.

Now I’m waiting for Christmas, and that makes me glad. Waiting for gifts to give and receive. Waiting for company and kids and music and laughter. Waiting for big meals and colorful lights.

And last but not least, waiting for the story that never grows old, about a little baby that changed the world.