The Christmas tree business

Living on a tree farm is an awesome thing. And our tree farm was pretty spectacular complete with horses and wagons (and sometimes the sleigh!) and the quaint little log house filled with Grandma Betty's hand-dipped chocolates and mugs of hot cocoa and a roaring fire in the fireplace .

I remember the first year we sold Christmas trees. We didn’t have the log cabin in place yet and besides we had very few trees that were big enough so we sold them out of our garage. This was definitely a learn-as-you-go venture. 

It didn’t take long to get caught up in the excitement - watching people choose their tree and tie it on top of their car and head down the driveway. As one dad was securing the tree and Mom was loading the kids in the car, their little guy stopped and turned around to tell me, “THANK YOU for our Christmas tree!!!” His joy gave me a teeny peak into how fun the Christmas tree business might be.

By the next year there were lots of boys around - some young boys and a bunch of bigger boys working the tree lot and the fields.  Lots and lots of boys through the years. Mike and Mike and Tim and Jeff and Jeff… and Ricky and Ben and Sam... and a whole lot more.

By then we had acquired and moved the old log cabin to the farm and we had put in many late nights restoring it to be our sales office, the face of the tree farm. That was when things got really exciting!

That first opening weekend was indeed grand. Lots of people showed up and lots of horses, too.

There were the teams that we had arranged to pull wagons and give free rides around the farm and there was also a large group of local riders that came for an outing from a nearby town. This outing became an annual tradition for them and for us. Interestingly enough one of those riders from the early days is now the owner of the farm.

Our “horse people” were a great asset to the tree farm. Our main driver, Grandpa Ed, could take people exactly where they needed to be to find the tree they wanted and then swing by awhile later to pick them up with their freshly-cut tree. 

We had a phenomenal crew. Our daughters and our parents all helped in various roles during those early years - as well as those boys mentioned above. Some of these guys grew up with us through the twenty years that we sold trees. For example, in the early years the three Whitson boys were just little tikes excited to ride in the horse-drawn wagon - and then eventually ended up working on the farm once they got bigger. And there was Sam who was barely in school when he and his parents appeared on TV from the tree farm. Dick Fabian came from WNEM-TV5 to do a story for their Take5 program and filmed Sam and his dad cutting down a Christmas tree. Sam kept coming to the tree farm through the years and eventually he became part of the crew.

There were families and there were traditions. Bob’s siblings wanted to be part of the festivities so they started a tradition of gathering in the wreath shed on opening day to make wreaths together. Who can forget the battery-operated lighted wreath that Ron made for the front of his car!

There were friends who came home from college with our girls. First from Bethel College with Stacy and then Angie. Then from North Park University with Wendi. And then there were the Moody boys.

There were students from around the world - some who lived with us for a year and some who visited for a weekend. Matthieu from France, Eugene from Russia, Priscilla from Costa Rica, Juliana from Colombia - as well as Jo from Finland, Cheng from China, Yukka from Japan… There was a large Lebanese family from down-state who came every year. Wonderful fascinating people converging on a lovely Christmasy spot.

There were field trips.

There were crafts and crafters.

There were singers. When our friends who formed the folk music group Living Truth came to get their Christmas tree, of course they serenaded all of the other customers with beautiful Christmas music.

…

Year after year people kept coming back - driving from as far as Detroit to get their tree. Actually some of our trees went out of state - to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota and Virginia… 

There was lots of fun and lots of hard work. Certainly the fun exciting days outnumbered the difficult ones but there still came a point when the time was right to close down the farm. We set up a self-service system and sold trees by appointment - mostly to friends and neighbors - for a few more years. And now we've sold the farm.

After 25 years of Hidden Hollows Christmas tree memories, this year is quite different. Oldest daughter and hubby had earlier followed the tradition of planting Christmas trees in their back yard, so they have been harvesting their own for a couple years now. Middle daughter is starting new traditions with her young family - exploring their new neighborhood to find a Christmas tree somewhere else. *sniff* Youngest daughter can’t have a real tree in her apartment - for maybe the first time ever. And this is our first year without one as well. No wonder we are feeling a little nostalgic! *sniff, sniff*

In fact, when we see cars with trees on top coming from the tree farm near our current home, we sort of feel left out. I guess we feel a bit of a vacuum where the excitement of the Christmas tree business once was. 

Are we sorry about our decision?  Do we wish we had stayed at the farm?

Nope. Because while there are lots of things that we miss, there are a whole bunch of things that we DON’T miss!!! Things that makes us tired just thinking about them. Things that we are no longer able to do.

But best of all is the freedom that we have - now that we are no longer tied down to the tree farm!

• Tied down to the schedule - when we were too busy and too tired to do much of any holiday activity.
• Tied down to the work - both hard physical labor and lots of time-consuming mental work.
• Tied down to the place with all of the maintenance and repair of several buildings as well as the trees and the grounds.
• Tied down financially. That’s the biggie. We are now free to do other things. To spend our money in other ways.

There are always trade-offs. Pros and cons.

Life is simpler now. Less restricted.

We are quite happy with our decision to sell the farm and live on the road. 

Time marches on. We make changes and tough decisions. Life brings joy and loss. Even good changes carry pain. But I'm learning that I don't need to hide from the pain and loss. To the contrary, as I take time to feel it, I am actually choosing to honor and cherish the beauty of those wonderful years.

So when Mariah Carey starts to sing “I miss you most at Christmas time” and I sing along, this year I might not be singing to a person. Instead I may be addressing that magical time and place. It is a conscious decision to embrace the sadness as well as the joy of the amazingly awesome memories from our life on the Christmas tree farm.