Past imperfect

By Kevin Beairsto

As I get older, I have come to realize that our memories actually get better: Not better as in we remember more, but better in terms of how pleasant what we remember becomes. Life’s sharp corners and rough edges seem, thankfully, to become rounder and smoother with the passing of time. Just as the size of the fish grows each time the story of his catch is told, so too do our memories grow fonder as time passes, naturally edited and brightened and sharpened in much the same way we can use PhotoShop today to edit our digital photos. Let me give you an example.

We were at a party recently, and talk turned to Christmas. I listened to my wife tell friends heartwarming tales of the Beairsto Christmas Tree Adventures. My wife is a tradition nut, and the Christmas season is the culmination of her tradition-filled year. When and what we eat, which ornaments and which cookies we make, how we open presents . . . the list seems endless. One of her most basic Christmas precepts though, is the banning of all grocery-store-parking-lot, pre-cut Christmas trees. (And she has yet to acknowledge the existence of artificial trees).

For many years when our kids were young, we lived up north, where Christmases were almost always white and cold. An older family that lived across the street from us told us about a Christmas tree farm that ran along a river north of the city. They painted an idyllic picture of a snowy forest with horse-drawn sleighs and rosy-cheeked kids bundled up in their hats and mittens, sipping hot chocolate as they searched happily for the perfect tree.

Angela was sold immediately, and as we piled the kids into their car seats and headed off into the falling snow, a new Beairsto Christmas tradition was born.

After an hour-long drive, we reached the farm and found—to my surprise, I’ll admit—that the neighbors’ description was actually very accurate. The farm was gorgeous in the snow, there really was a beautiful horse-drawn sleigh, and the kids, bundled in their hats and mittens, did enjoy the rich, warm, homemade hot cocoa.

It was the “searching happily for the perfect tree” part that threw us. Our oldest was 5 or 6 at the time, our youngest still a baby. We quickly discovered that the average 1- to 5-year-old enjoys getting off the sleigh, putting down the hot chocolate, and tramping through the fairly deep snow in search of a tree for about three and a half minutes. After that, all bets are off.

Our oldest, who had proudly been entrusted with possession of the farm’s saw (a difficult Dad lesson I would not learn for many years to come), decided that it was too heavy and, rather than mentioning this to anyone, dropped it in foot-deep snow somewhere along our journey. The 4-year-old wandered off in pursuit of the farm’s resident sheepdog, which wouldn’t have been a big deal in itself, but for the fact that I was already in search of the 3-year-old’s mittens, which he had ditched shortly after leaving the sleigh in order to wrestle another candy cane from his coat pocket. So I missed the dog diversion altogether. A funny thing happens in our family when things go rapidly and in-a-blaze-of-glory, dramatically wrong: Everyone blames Dad.

So, let’s get this picture clear in our minds. We are in the middle of a cold, snowy forest; we are presently one child short of the crew we came with; we are trying to remove a half-eaten candy cane from the bright red hands of another child who is convinced the candy cane is frozen to him, not stuck (I’m pretty sure it was just stuck); we have no saw (and have spent more than a little time lecturing the saw-dropper, who is now pouting and kicking snow on the human candy cane, who in turn, begins screaming at the top of his lungs); Mom is not happy (and we all know the maxim regarding said unhappiness) and is now referring to the whole family outing as “your brilliant idea.” And, oddly enough, at this point not thought one has been given to finding a Christmas tree.

We survived that first outing, found our missing child (OK, so someone else actually found him and brought him back), miraculously stayed married, and yes, even cut down our own tree—a small, ugly pine from right next to the barn, where, judging by all of the newly cut stumps, many other families with small children had been before us. Despite all of the excitement, the trip did become a family tradition, and for many years afterwards, we joyfully made the trek to the farm each Christmas.

I’d like to tell you that the trip got easier over the years, but it would be hard to say that with a straight face. As the kids got older, not only did they continue to lose the saw but, ironically, they would begin each trip by fighting over whose turn it was to carry the saw that year. They threw snowballs at each other, at strangers, at the sleigh, at the farmer on his big John Deere tractor, at the plastic elves hung on the side of the barn, and at the cows and sheep in the manger scene.

They played hide-and-seek among the trees for hours, and then they would sneak away and hop the sleigh back to the barn for more hot chocolate while Dad trudged through the cold and snow trying to find the perfect tree (all the while dreaming of what it must be like to buy a nice, symmetrical tree from the Kroger parking lot, as normal people did). The kids argued about which tree to choose, and they swore they had seen the “perfect one” a half-mile up the river, only to be told when we finally arrived there that the “perfect” 33-foot tree would likely not fit well in our living room. They made snow angels, and built snow men, and petted the horses, and generally sought any means of spending time that did not involve deciding on a tree.

One unforgettable year, they convinced us to bring our dog, a 130-pound black lab named Sloop, a recent Christmas present himself, along on our Adventure. Sloop, who had the mental capacity of a small rock, had a blast with the kids in the snow, and the beast was soon befriended by all of the other folks at the farm. But an ugly mating incident with one of Santa’s life-size plastic reindeer in front of a group of astonished first-graders, coupled with the fact that dog drool froze rapidly on cold car windows (and of course no one would touch it to clean it off) quickly put an end to that chapter of our tradition.

Part of the Christmas Tree Adventure involved each member of the family getting down in the snow beneath the tree and taking a turn with the saw—I learned, after several years, to grab an extra when we left the barn—as we cut down whatever tree we (I) had finally decided upon. And with their turn at the saw came the obligatory photos. There are cute shots of each of them sort of smiling that Angela often shows to friends. But in a box in the attic are the dozens of rejected pictures that tell the true story: The angry glares from snow stuck down the cutter’s pants, or boots pulled off as he or she lay under the tree, or the perfect shake of the tree at just the right moment to cover the saw-holder’s face with snow as the photo is snapped, or . . . well, you get the picture.

As I listened to Angela tell her friends the tales of our Beairsto Christmas Tree Adventures, though, I realized that, other than the setting and theme indeed being idyllic, the sweet stories that my wife was recounting bore only a slight resemblance to the real adventures that we have experienced over the years. And it struck me that, in her mind, the corners have become rounder and the sharp edges smoother. She remembers not the fighting and the snowballs and the sullied life-size plastic reindeer, but only the fact that for so many years that tradition has been a part of our Christmas and a part of the precious glue that holds us together as a family.

Our Christmas Tree Adventures became a part of who we are as a family and are memories that we created together and will each carry with us through our lives. They, like so many of our traditions, are constant reminders that in family, we are never alone.