The perfect Christmas tree was $10 and resilient

My wife and I went looking for a Christmas tree in the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest in northern Wisconsin. We thought it might be fun to find an “authentic” Christmas tree as opposed to one groomed for the occasion. For $10, you can get a permit from the county to cut a tree in a state forest provided you don’t clear-cut the woods in the process.

We parked the car on the highway and walked down a logging road into the heart of the forest. My first impression was of the sheer beauty of the Northwoods. A light snow had fallen the night before, and the trees were decorated with white trimmings.

The scene was like the cover of a Christmas card delivered to us in this most authentic of moments. My second impression was one of astonishment at being overwhelmed by the utter volume of trees to choose from. If you’ve been to a Christmas tree lot, you know the difficulty of finding the right tree among dozens of choices.

Now imagine the task when presented with thousands. It’s like trying to pick the winning lottery numbers. People are also reading.

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Trees are not impeccably shaped or stylishly groomed. Could this one pass as a Christmas tree if we put enough lights on it? But we reminded ourselves that the widely spaced branches are actually ideal for hanging ornaments without them getting lost in the clutter. All the trees are $10, so you have the pick of the litter.

And you don’t need to worry about a salesman trying to sell you a taller tree because that one is $10, too. But you can’t question the authenticity of a tree growing in the middle of the wilderness. It possesses the ruggedness necessary to compete with other trees for space and sunlight.

Therein lies its character, fashioned from an inherent will to live. We discovered that the “perfect” tree is always just a little bit farther down the trail. As my wife disappeared down the logging road, I began to calculate the time it would take to haul this hypothetical tree back to the car.

We eventually found two balsam trees -- one for the living room, and one for our deck -- and began the trek back to the car. Our dog Gil looked at us quizzically. He’d been in the forest several times with us but had never seen us haul part of it back home.

A Christmas tree is a window into the past and the center of the holiday celebration. The tree might change in size or type, but it’s still a Christmas tree in all our memories. The people around the tree change.

Children become adults. Adults become parents. Parents become grandparents.

Experiences become memories in a seamless flow of time around the tree. I can remember my sister and I sitting next to the Christmas tree in our family’s living room. We had retreated there because we could not tolerate the pungent smell of lutefisk cooking in the kitchen.

As the rest of our family enjoyed -- if that word can even be associated with lutefisk -- the family dinner, we munched on hot dogs as we exiled ourselves from the Christmas celebration. Lefse, a Norwegian potato bread, was a different story for me. I could not consume enough as a child and have now mastered the art of making lefse as an adult -- provided I can calculate the right amount of flour to prevent the dough from falling apart on the way to the griddle.

My grandchildren now help me, ensuring that this tradition will survive for the next generation assembled around the tree. As I write this story, I am looking at this tree plucked from a northern forest and “planted” in our living room. The story of past Christmases is told by ornaments crafted by our children and grandchildren over the years and hung between its sparse limbs.

“Missing a few branches,” my wife quipped, as one might acknowledge the shortcomings of a stranger you just met. Yet the ruggedness of this wilderness tree reminds me of the resilience of our family and our traditions. The tree is perfect beyond measure.

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