8 Facts about Christmas Trees

The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature. If some of our great decorated trees had been grown in a remote forest area with lights that came on every evening as it grew dark, the whole world would come to look at them and marvel at the mystery of their great beauty.

Andy Rooney

My most favorite part of celebrating Christmas is the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree.

I grew up in the city of Glendale, Arizona. Live Christmas trees came down the mountainside on trucks from Northern Arizona and sold in Christmas tree lots in front of supermarkets, hardware stores, and on corners. We always had a real Christmas tree until the Christmas we didn’t.

My father was in charge of getting the Christmas tree every year. When I was ten, he did not get our tree in time. A week before Christmas, he was frantically going from lot to lot to find a tree. There were none available. He came home with an artificial tree. It was the store tree that stood as a stage in the Christmas department. I think he begged for the tree because he knew if he didn’t come home with a tree he would be a failure for the evening. He convinced the manager to sell him the tree. He did.

My parents took the tree out of the unmarked cardboard box and inserted the limbs into the tree trunk. I cried because I wanted a real tree. The tree was crooked. My mother and I hung some red and green ball ornaments and my father strung a few strings of colored Christmas lights on the tree…