Something wasn’t quite right. I could sense it. I could almost see it, but like a dream hovering on the edge of consciousness first thing in the morning, I couldn’t bring it into focus. Panic doesn’t always strike like a thunderclap. There are quieter versions, those that begin as a ripple, a flutter in the stomach, a vague, soundless sense that something is awry. Mine was the low-decibel type.
The sun was setting, and I was sitting in my car waiting for the light to turn at the intersection of SW Cary Parkway and Waldo Rood Boulevard. Christmas carols played on the FM station spreading harmonic warmth like an heirloom quilt on a four-poster bed. Then I saw it. Through the dimming trees, I could make out strings of bare bulbs dangling over a vacant lot where Christmas trees were for sale. But the lights weren’t on. There was no sign of life. The lot was closed. How can this be? Didn’t we still have six full shopping days before Christmas?
My uneasiness rose from a simple fact: I hadn’t bought our Christmas tree. It was on my to-do list for the later in the week. And for good reason. My brothers would be arriving from California—their first visit to North Carolina and the first of my relatives to visit us since we retired and moved to Cary, a suburb of Raleigh-Durham—a town that Tar Heel natives mischievously turn into an acronym for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.
The preparations for my brothers were progressing nicely. Menus made. Gifts wrapped. Only grocery shopping, vacuuming, and dusting remained. In our household, visits from suitcase-carrying guests tend to prompt deeper cleanings than our standard Saturday routine. It is then we notice the ubiquity of dust—that invasive, almost invisible, intruder that settles like an unwanted frost on the plantation blinds, the blades of the ceiling fans, even the domes of the light bulbs in the living room lamps.
But the Christmas tree was to be purchased after my brothers’ arrival, most likely after they’d had a chance to unpack and unwind a bit. My brother Paul wanted to be part of the tree selection. Over the years we had purchased a number of Christmas trees together, and when we were apart for the holidays, he sometimes sent us a check for a tree—his Christmas gift that ensured a worthy Frazier fir. Few things are more important to our family during the holidays than selecting the perfect tree to preside over the festivities in the living room. If you asked our children, now adults, what Christmas tradition was more important to them—a Christmas tree or the exchange of gifts—I’m sure they’d reply without hesitation, a tree.
Perhaps the reason for its importance is its deep-rooted history, for a tree is more than the largest Christmas decoration in the house. It’s a family scrapbook, every branch a page displaying keepsakes from the past. Many of them encapsulate a family story. Most gifts fade from memory but the ornamental bulbs keep certain experiences alive. These stories are retold each year as the prized perennials are unpacked and hung on the out-stretched boughs. In our family, certain tree treasures may only be hung by their namesake and pity the well-intentioned guest who innocently violates the unwritten protocol.
When our son Drew and his wife bought their first tree, he asked if he could rummage through the trunks in the attic for Christmas decorations. He wanted to find some of his boyhood ornaments and hang them on their tree. As he pulled down the folding ladder from the second-floor ceiling and climbed into the patchy light of the storage loft, I knew he was heading deeper into the forest of adulthood and sought familiar tokens to mark the way.
When the traffic light turned green and I drove on past the deserted Christmas tree lot, I was worried. Had there been an unprecedented rush on tree purchases? Not wanting to tempt fate further, I determined that first thing in the morning, I would go to the location where we had found our tree last year. I would arrive well before opening time and be first in line when they unlocked the gate, just to be sure. If the inventory was dwindling, I’d go ahead and choose a tree. Paul would understand.
As I drove to the Mistletoe Meadows tree lot on Monday morning, I looked for their not-to-be-missed Christmas decoration—an imposing inflated vinyl snowman whose 40-foot body towered over the forest of fresh-cut trees and the nearby Publix grocery store like a runaway balloon from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. With a red-mitten hand raised in greeting, it arrested the attention of drivers while still several blocks away. I sometimes wondered if the buoyant greeter on steroids was too startling for its own good.
But where was it? It was nowhere in sight. As I drove abreast of the lot, I saw disarray. The little red and green shed that doubled as a sales office and display center for wreaths was partially dismantled. Some trees stood under the white tent but most lay in piles ready to be taken to a chipper and become mulch for next spring’s gardens. The festive scene of just a few hours earlier was now a wrecking zone, as though Scrooge himself had arrived and called a halt to Christmas. Then I noticed a large puddle of red, black, and white plastic where the snowman had stood. Drivers on High House Road would no longer be distracted.
The gate on the temporary fence was closed and locked. A sign gave the hours: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. There was no sign saying the lot was closed for the season. It was still 20 minutes before opening time. So I decided to stay put on the chance that the Mistletoe Meadows staff would still show up. But I needed a back-up plan. Knowing that Drew and his wife had already purchased their tree, I called my daughter-in-law and asked her what she knew about the availability of trees. She said she thought that most lots had closed over the weekend but would check around for me.
As I waited for Connie to call back, I found myself sternly interrogating myself. Why had I blithely assumed that the rhythms of buying Christmas trees in the Research Triangle followed those of our former neighborhood in New Jersey? They weren’t the same, or so it seemed. Why hadn’t I paid closer attention? Our new neighbors bought their trees early, even before the leftovers of the Thanksgiving feast have disappeared. Back in the Garden State, a selection of firs from North Carolina was usually available even on Christmas Eve at Wightman Farms in Morristown. Didn’t I know that making a to-do list is not the same thing as buying an insurance policy? My cell phone rang, ending my self-incrimination. It was Connie, and the news was not good. Most of the tree lots in our area were closed for the season; they had stopped selling trees on the weekend. While a few were still open, the pickings were slim.
Since it was now 10:20, I decided to dash over to one of them. As I was fastening my seatbelt, a white pickup pulled up. A man in a blue parka got out and unlocked the gate. Then he drove the truck in. Not waiting to see if he would relock the gate, I immediately edged in and parked behind him.
“May I buy a tree?” I asked. “I’m sorry,” he said, “We’re closed for the season. We stopped selling last night. I’m here to tear down the tent and load everything up. I don’t have the authority to sell you a tree.”
Long ago my grandfather taught me that when you make a request and it is declined, or a plan you’ve made goes awry, you don’t give up without some thought. “Politely explore options,” he would counsel, “always use your imagination.” Emboldened with that Scottish advice, I told him my plight—the miscalculations of a newcomer. A perfect Christmas and my status in the family, were at stake. Could he possibly let me in under the wire and sell me a tree anyway?
“Let me call the manager of the lot,” he said, “I would need his permission.” He walked away and took his cell phone out of his pocket. I could hear him talking and tried hard not to look like I was hanging on to every inflection of his voice and any cue from his gestures as to my fate.
When he returned, he said, “Joel says you can buy a tree, but it must be a cash sale. Does that work for you?” I resisted the urge to hug him and assured him that it did.
After a brisk tour among the still-standing trees, I selected a handsome 8-foot Fraser Fir. In no time at all, my hero baled it with netting and lashed it to the top of my car. Then for good measure, he loaded two rolls of white pine garland into the trunk. “Something extra for your Christmas,” he said.
Back in November 2007, under the glare of TV cameras, Mistletoe Meadows Christmas Tree Farm shipped a premier 18-foot Frasier Fir tree to the White House to grace the Blue Room for the holidays. But this year, Mistletoe Meadows, without fanfare, went to unusual lengths to help a newcomer to the state give a prized North Carolina Christmas greeting to his California brothers in a less famous, but just as important, parlor.
