READERS REPORT (23) TREE TRADITION GETS CHRISTMAS STARTED

READERS REPORT (23) TREE TRADITION GETS CHRISTMAS STARTED

GERARD O'NEIL   WWW.STUFF.CO.NZ    18/12/2014

Growing up on a farm deep in South Westland in the 1960s, the event that hailed the long-awaited arrival of the festive season was the selection of our Christmas tree.

Shortly before Christmas, the whole family would pile onto the tractor and head for a small stand of ancient pine trees located in a far corner of the farm. Looking up from the base of one of the enormous trees, a branch was identified as having the honour of becoming that year’s Christmas tree.

My eldest brothers would climb up and cut the selected branch and it would then be gently lowered to the ground where it was loaded onto the trailer. As the branch occupied the entire trailer and then some, there was no space for us kids.

As we walked behind the slow-moving tractor we discussed what we hoped to receive for Christmas and, if the weather had been dry, take the opportunity to practice one of our favorite sports - who could throw dry cowpats (improvised frisbees) the furthest.

Once home, our Christmas tree would have its base inserted into an old paint can decorated with some of last year’s Christmas paper. Each child (there were six of us) was then allowed to select a decoration to attach to the tree.

Providing cheeky keas had not flown off with the shiny objects, as the tree was located on the front veranda, our tree was ready for the miracle, which repeated itself year after year.

FESTIVE SEEDLINGS

On Christmas Eve, despite their excitement, the youngest children were sent to bed early. At around 11pm they were woken and bundled into the car as it was traditional to attend midnight mass in the local village.

As my father reversed the car down the driveway, my mother would always point in the opposite direction to the house and shout: "Look kids, I have just seen Father Christmas and his reindeer fly over the woodshed!"

When we arrived back from church, everyone would rush to the Christmas tree to discover if Father Christmas had found it. He always did!

A few days after Christmas our beloved tree began to wilt and early in the New Year, it was cut up for fire wood.

My uncle and aunty were a little more environmentally-conscious than our family. On their hill farm behind Nelson, they had thousands of pine trees, but instead of cutting one down for a Christmas tree, they grew a seedling in a container.

For many years, they enjoyed the same Christmas tree, be it a little taller, each festive season. When it was too big to enter the living room, it was transplanted out back where it still stands to this day more than 40 years later. It serves as a reminder of Christmases past and has provided hours of tree climbing fun for their grandchildren and now their great grandchildren.

TREE WITH A DIFFERENCE

On arriving on my future parents-in-law's farm in southern Brazil for my first Christmas, my father-in-law invited me to go with him to select a Christmas tree. He told me he would give me the honour of cutting it down and supplied me with an axe and a pair of thick leather gloves.

I presumed the gloves were because he thought my soft office worker hands would blister. I soon discovered that the traditional Christmas tree in that region was a type of thorn bush and despite the gloves I still managed to spike and scratch myself various times.

Trying to decorate the tree was even worse than cutting it down. If one can imagine decorating a gorse bush, you can get the idea.

During subsequent years, it somehow became my responsibility to organise the Christmas tree. Then one day the government passed a law making it illegal to cut down native trees. I could not have been happier!

The next Christmas, my parents-in-law bought an artificial tree, which was setup on the veranda. To finalise the decoration and make it more authentic, my mother-in-law placed wads of cotton wool on it to represent snow.

During the first night, all the cotton wool mysteriously disappeared.

Suspecting the wind had carried it off, the cotton wool was replaced, but during the following night, it all disappeared again. Not to be out done, my mother-in-law placed even more cotton wool on the tree. The next morning she got up very early to see if it was still there.

It was, but suspecting it soon might not be, she hid behind a curtain to spy on the tree. At first light, a swarm of humming birds appeared and in a few minutes had managed to fleece our Christmas tree of all its cotton wool.

After breakfast, we went nest hunting. We discovered a number of tiny humming bird nests comfortably lined with cotton wool. Some birds were innocently sitting in them looking as if they had every right to their special Christmas treat.

Now when my mother-in-law decorates the Christmas tree she practices the law of supply and demand. On the first day, our Christmas tree is covered in so much cotton wool, it looks like it has been hit by a blizzard. By about the third day, the local humming bird population has carried off all they need and the quantity remaining is about right.

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