Member-only story
Are They Your Christmas Tree?
A surprisingly deep metaphor for finding your person
One year while she was in college, my sister discovered a Christmas tree farm. It was inconveniently located by every measure, way up a windy mountain road certain to induce car sickness even among the strong-stomached. Nevertheless, she dragged us all there the Friday after Thanksgiving, and despite all our complaining, we quickly fell in love.
While enjoying the blue skies and fresh mountain air, we meandered through the aisles of trees. Some were short and stocky, others tall and spindly, still others lush and fuller than we could have imagined based on the anemic grocery store trees we had always gotten before. Once we had chosen our tree, we took a slightly guilty pleasure in its pagan sacrifice. Some of us struggled to strap it to the roof of the car, while the rest observed, offering detached encouragement. Finally, we all enjoyed hot chocolate and candy canes served by workers in elf hats. What could be better?
Needless to say, we went back the next year, and the year after that, and pretty much every year since.
By several years into our Christmas tree farm tradition, we were seldom all home in time to go there together. One year, though, for my son’s first Christmas that he might reasonably remember, we made a point of…
