- Tags:
- Working Forests
Funny how cultural behaviors become traditions. When our house was built in the early 1800s, none of its inhabitants—nor any of their distant neighbors, would have even imagined cutting down a live balsam fir or eastern white pine tree and dragging it inside the house in the days leading up to Dec. 25.
That said, it is apparently the case that evergreen trees and plants have long been seen as symbols of life, and used in celebration of the winter solstice. When your survival depends on the sun, which annually drops low in the sky and starts clocking in late and leaving early like the boss’s nephew, you’ll try anything to entice it back--even draping a few strands of holly around the hovel to remind the sun god that green is good.
Among the deities that history suggests were partial to the sacrificial evergreen was the Viking sun god, Balder. He had a complicated story that didn’t end well for him, but it’s comforting for a middle-aged guy like me that I’m not so much getting a little thin on top as I am becoming more godlike.
The Puritans saw Christmas as sacred and discouraged ‘pagan mockery’ such as Christmas carols, decorated trees and (probably) free shipping from Amazon.com. In the 17th century Massachusetts outlawed any secular observance of Christmas, which may be why folks from down Boston way started coming to New Hampshire for their frivolity—though it doesn’t explain their driving habits.
The generally accepted history of the now-revered Tannenbaum has it being brought to America by German settlers, earliest perhaps in Pennsylvania, and spreading from there. But even in the mid-1800s, many Americans considered Christmas trees pagan symbols.
Imagine what they might think today’s garishly decorated Christmas trees, shaped by careful shearing like a high-end hair-do to meet Madison Avenue aesthetics. Not to mention what a early 19th century New Hampshire farmer would make of Black Friday and death-by-shopping stampedes.
Don’t worry, I’m not going all Grinch here. The Forest Society embraces the commerce of the holidays via our Rocks Christmas Tree Farm, where we enable genuine annual family cut-your-own tree traditions and the gift shop is stocked with locally made crafts. We ship “Rocks Balsams” Christmas trees nationwide. We like being part of the economy north of Franconia Notch and we like the connection between commerce and nature. We provide jobs and memories.
But permit me nonetheless to carve out a little room for a less frantic, more natural scene. I can’t be the only one who cringes when our collective enthusiasm for the season boils over and the tinsel starts to obscure any meaning.
In that spirit let me suggest that we can also celebrate nature’s décor, when the remnants of a December snowstorm paint the woods. Where a balsam fir left to its own assumes a no less pleasing form in a field. Where a white pine reaching for the sky first accepts its snowy mantle, then shakes it off in the wind that follows the storm. Where a densely branched hemlock umbrellas the ground beneath it, much to the comfort of small creatures.
These are my favorite trees of Christmas, and we in New Hampshire are blessed to have forests full of them. Happy holidays.