Finding the right tree for the Christmas holidays takes patience, persistence and many more than 10,000 steps.
A recent Sunday journey to do just that also took plenty of lip biting on my part as I accompanied my wife, Cindy, from tree farm to tree farm in her quest to find that perfect evergreen.
The plan was to find a 10-foot tree for our screened-in porch and a six-foot tree for our livingroom. I thought the six-foot tree was sufficient, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson—sometimes the hard way—that it’s just best to follow her with chainsaw in hand. In the end, she’s usually right since she’s artistic, creative and very successful running a home furnishings business.
On the other hand, I’m more of a stick figure guy, although as a kid I did grab third place in a Crayola coloring contest sponsored by Waldbaum’s grocery store.
Our first destination took us to Angevine Farm in Warren where an appointment is required. We found an abundance of nice trees but finding the right 10-footer was going to take some work. We trudged through the snow and the countless rows in the lower fields but found nothing.
Eventually, we drove to the much larger upper fields as we continued our quest. After an hour, I decided to bag it and stay warm by a nice campfire in the upper lot, while my wife, undaunted, continued her search over hill and dale. Ah, this is where I was meant to be, I said to myself, as I rubbed my hands in front of the fire.
However, after not seeing her appear for more than 30 minutes, an uneasy feeling came over me and I began to scour the hillside and adjacent fields where the rows of holiday trees seemed to go on forever.
“Where could she be?” I thought. Maybe she tripped and knocked herself out on a stump, perhaps where a 10-foot tree once stood. My search proved futile and just as I considered asking an employee if we could take a ride in his nearby all-terrain vehicle, Cindy appeared out of the mist.
“Where the heck have you been?” I asked in a not-so-holiday-like tone, although I was relieved to finally see her.
“Oh, I found these other fields down below, but they don’t have what I’m looking for,” she said matter-of-factly. “Why don’t we just get a tree for the living room while we’re here and move on.”
Great idea! We could have done that in 10 minutes and that was actually how long it took. After a total of 90 minutes, we left the farm and headed down Route 45 towards Cornwall, where my wife was certain she had seen larger trees a week earlier. Not sure why we didn’t go there first, but okay. We had to keep going because we had borrowed a van for the day that would be necessary to convey a 10-foot tree. This was no longer an outing to find a tree, it had now become more of a reconnaissance mission of the northwest corner.
But as we turned onto Route 7 and headed south, the location in Cornwall was not only closed, but there were no trees left for sale! I told myself to stay calm, as I white-knuckled the steering wheel and continued into Kent to check out the tree lot next to St. Andrew’s Parish. By now, Cindy had softened her stance on finding a fresh-cut tree, but the trees at St. Andrew’s weren’t tall enough.
As I continued to drive south, she kept busy looking up tree farms on Google only to find that most had closed for the day. Dusk had approached as we arrived at Windswept Farm on the New Milford-Sherman border, but we had no luck there in finding the Big Tree. Hungry (no lunch) and cold, we finally ended up in a pre-cut tree lot and took the best 10-footer we could find, four hours after our arrival at Angevine. Heading home, we both broke out in laughter over the lunacy of trying to find the Right Tree.
But make no mistake. Next holiday season will be much of the same and I’m already plotting ways to stay at home in front of the fireplace.
