The scent is the first thing I remember. Not the pine, exactly, but the cold, wild fragrance it carried into our warm house, a crisp, sharp perfume of forests and winter air that announced the season more surely than any calendar. The ritual was unchanging. My father would wrestle the sturdy, snow-dusted balsam through the front door, leaving a trail of needles and melted frost on the floor. As the eldest of three brothers, my job was to crawl beneath the prickly branches to secure the stand, my cheek pressed against the rough bark, breathing in that earthy, sappy smell that felt like the very essence of Christmas.
For years, my wife and I carried this same tradition forward. Our own
children’s eyes would widen as we brought the tree inside, a living piece of
magic taking root in our living room. We loved the imperfect shape, the way
each tree had its own personality, a bald spot here, a curiously curved branch
there. We loved the gentle, nightly shower of needles that formed a soft,
fragrant carpet around the presents. It was chaos, and it was beautiful.
But one year, after the tinsel was packed away and the vacuum cleaner
had whirred its final protest against the last of the needles, my wife and I
had what could only be called an animated discussion. We tallied the positives:
the scent, the ritual, the authenticity. And then, the negatives: the watering,
the mess, the increasing difficulty of the annual
"trunk-straightening" ordeal. We tentatively broached the once
unthinkable: an artificial tree.
It took us five years to make the change. Five Christmases of debating
of looking at glossy brochures of perfectly coiffed trees, of feeling a pang of
guilt at the thought of abandoning a tradition that felt woven into our very
bones. The decision, when it finally came, felt momentous.
The first year with the new tree was a quiet revelation. We assembled it
section by section in the quiet of a December afternoon, its branches unfolding
with a soft, plastic whisper instead of the scratch of real
fir. It took my wife hours to make ensure the branches were perfect in form and shape.There was no scent of the forest, but there was also no mess, no worry. We
plugged it in, and a hundred tiny lights, already perfectly strung, blazed to
life. It was… flawless. Symmetrical. Easy.
And in its own way, it was just as warm.
The warmth of our real tree had been a wild, untamed thing, the scent of
the outdoors, the tactile memory of youth, the vibrant, living symbol of the
season. Its magic was in its fleeting, messy aliveness.
The warmth of our artificial tree is different. It is a warmth of
curation and continuity. As we unwrap each ornament now, there is no risk of a
brittle, dry branch snapping. We can take our time, lingering over the stories
each one holds. The clumsy, glitter-covered popsicle-stick angel our daughter
made in kindergarten. The delicate glass ball from our first Christmas as a
married couple. The souvenir ornaments from trips we’ve taken. This tree is not
a wild thing we brought inside; it is a dedicated gallery for our family’s
history. Its visual warmth comes from the collective glow of a thousand
memories, safely and steadily illuminated year after year.
Our real tree was a celebration of the present moment, a vibrant, dying
flame. Our artificial tree is a gentle, enduring ember, carefully tended. One
was not better than the other; they were simply right for different chapters of
our lives.
Now, the tradition has shifted. The adventure is no longer in the
choosing and hauling, but in the careful unwrapping and the retelling of
stories. "Remember when you made this?" we’ll say, hanging a lopsided
clay reindeer. "Oh, this one is from that little shop in Vermont."
The tree becomes a silent, glowing narrator of our lives together.
So, real or artificial? The truth is that the magic of the season doesn't reside in the type of tree we choose. It lives in the hearts that gather around it. It is in the shared laughter as we untangle the lights, the soft carols playing in the background, the way the tree’s multicolored glow paints the dark room with a soft, hopeful light. Whether your tree carries the wild scent of a winter forest or the curated glow of a lifetime of love, its true purpose is the same: to be a beacon in the dark, a silent witness to our joy, and a keeper of our most precious stories.
