this year was to be the first year. the family would trek up to the pike's peak national forest and cut down our first colorado christmas tree. now, some folks tried to dissuade us, some laughed in our faces, some called them charlie brown trees, but we would not be derailed from our long time holiday tradition made new here. back in illinois, we would drive to plainfield to andersons' tree farm, hop a golf cart out to the fields, pick our tree, take the annual picture before the sawing commenced and hop back on the cart to a warm, building for cocoa and popcorn. let's just say, these niceties are not exactly present in the national forest.
we drove up into the mountains on the first saturday in december. the paper said to stop at a local middle school parking lot to obtain our $10 license for the tree. already, we were smiling glibly thinking we had avoided the $60 a tree conspiracy of "those people". the rangers said to expect to drive quite a ways, as many of the trees were already picked over. after shaking hands with smokey the bear and receiving a stack of fire prevention materials, we got back in our non-4-wheel drive minivan and wound our way up and into the national forest.
we pulled off a few miles up the road and thought we'd find at least one doable tree, without traveling for hours. we all piled out of the van, bundled up for the higher elevation and set off. sam and ethan bounded down into a ravine, with olivia not far behind, reenacting bastogne. audrey, evelyn and i carefully stepped around stumps and fallen trees, listening to the snow crunch under our feet and enjoying our bambi-like forest experience at least for the first few minutes. after the long ride, evelyn had to eat so i found a log to perch on, while audrey explored. i had that laura ingalls wilder feeling, all earthy and simple and settler-ish, that is until the quiet moved in. marcus and the kids wandered farther and farther looking for "the" tree, while i just sat and thought about how little audrey was and the enormity of this forest. with every twig snapping i looked around for some kind of predator (okay a mountain lion) picturing the headline "nursing mother eaten by a mountain lion/toddler lost during family christmas tradition."
soon, i heard whooping and hollering and assumed they had found our tree. then the echos of our tried and true old red handsaw. when i finished feeding ev, audrey and i wandered down the ravine to catch up with the group and to see my husband the lumberjack sawing down a 100 foot tree. needless to say, there was not one 6ft. or 7 ft. tree anywhere and they decided to "top" a seqouia. (THE DIRECTIONS FROM THE RANGER CLEARLY SAY NOT TO TOP A TREE. THESE DIRECTIONS WERE NICE AND WARM IN THE MINIVAN). at this point, my toes were getting cold, audrey was falling over a tree stump or fallen log about every 15 seconds, the boys were wandering even farther away and olivia was already asking for hot chocolate. i decided to take the girls back up to the van, just as evelyn started screaming.
i turned the van on, got the heat going, let the girls roam free in the van, changed a poopy diaper and waited. after four or five christmas carols on the radio, we saw the boys coming up the hill with marcus right behind them. without the tree. seeing the tired and disappointed looks on all of their faces, i rolled the window down to hear "the saw broke". no replacement blade, no golf cart, no warm building to return to, no popcorn, no hot chocolate.
it was a quiet ride home. olivia cried and asked if we were ever going to get a tree, thankfully audrey and evelyn fell asleep, and the boys slumped down in their seats feeling the defeat of nature versus man. marcus, exhausted from his first serious logging experience, just drove. i sat in the passenger seat, pondering a pre-lit fake tree and pre-meditating a trip to hobby lobby.
a week later and in the midst of school parties and last minute to do lists, the dreams of another drive up into the mountains were dashed. so, after having burgers and shakes at a 50's restaurant, we bought the biggest, fullest tree we've ever had (requiring a trip to the store for a new stand) for $50 from a boy scout troop in an arby's parking lot. yes, to my husband's dismay we became "those people". he is already preparing for next's years trek back up to the national forest. he's busy making mental notes of all the supplies and reinforcements we'll need and planning for different scenarios. so, the tree of 2008 was a learning experience. but we were still together as a family hunting conifers, which is all that matters. maybe we didn't establish our new colorado tradition, but it certainly was a memorable one. that is, until 2009...
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