In search of the ‘perfect’ Christmas tree

The Christmas trees remind me of those green toy army men I used to play with when I was a kid, standing at attention in rows under the sheds at the Georgia State Farmers Market. 

Soon, most of them will be gone, either sold or shipped off.

Greg Slaughter, of Slaughter’s Christmas Trees in Laurens County, kicked off the season last month with about 6,500 Fraser firs from North Carolina and Virginia. By Wednesday afternoon, he was down to 60 and is expected to close shop for the season by the weekend.

 Slaughter’s has been a holiday fixture at the farmer’s market in Macon for more than a half century. He said people now want their trees “full and fresh” but also early. The jump start to the season has been accelerated. Entire forests have already found their way into local living rooms and dens, adorned with lights and ornaments and crowned with angels and stars.  

My wife and I love sharing the story of our first Christmas together 43 years ago. My father had built a cabin in the North Georgia mountains, not far from Dawsonville. (We used to drive past NASCAR driver Bill Elliott’s garage on our way up there.) On a clear day, we could sit on the front porch and see the top of Amicalola Falls, near the trailhead of the Appalachian Trail.

Holding hands, we trudged down a hill to select a tree. We didn’t exactly return as conquering heroes. Our tree was embarrassing, tiny and pitiful, about as big as a scrap. Everyone asked what variety it was, and we told them “Charlie Brown.’’

When our children were little, we continued to tree hunt the old-fashioned way. We once ventured to a local tree farm on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon in “search of the perfect tree.’’

They provided us with a saw and turned us loose on the property. Clutching the saw in my frigid hands, I followed my family as we hurried across the rolling hills, trying to settle on one. 

Every time we took a family vote, someone spotted a more attractive one, and we were off to the next prickly mirage. 

We gave up and finally surrendered. We cut it down, strapped it to the luggage rack and made the 17-mile trip home, only to discover it had a crooked spine and an empty nest in the top boughs. (No, it didn’t belong to a squirrel like the one that attacked the Griswolds in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”)

Over the years, we have carried home trees from nurseries, seasonal corner parking lots, church fundraisers and, in moments of desperation, from Lowe’s and Home Depot. For many years, we purchased trees to support a Boy Scout troop from Lizella.

The history of our selection process has been punctuated with aimless roaming, intense lobbying and pure luck. Earlier this week, it only took five minutes. My wife was freezing and wanted to hop back in the car.

If you mention the name “Buddy” at Christmas time, some folks will immediately think of Buddy, the loveable, laughable character in “Elf.’’ Will Ferrell played Buddy in the 2003 movie. Macon’s own Grey Henson starred in the role on Broadway last year.

My earliest “Buddy’’ was the name of the boy in Truman Capote’s short story, “A Christmas Memory.’’ There’s a scene in the book (and in the 1966 and 1997 movies) where young Buddy and the old woman (identified only as his cousin) travel deep into the woods in search of the perfect tree.

They wade knee-deep through streams and cross briar patches that snag at their clothes. “We’re almost there. Can you smell it, Buddy?” the cousin asks. 

Intoxicated by the scent of pines and holly, they press on through the forest.

The perfect tree? “It should be twice as tall as a boy, so a boy can’t steal the star,” she instructs him.

When they finally find the one that meets their requirements and chop it down with 30 strokes of their hatchet, they drag it home like triumphant hunters.

They are stopped several times as they walk along the red clay road at sunset. The people in town want to know where they got such a fine tree. But it is a secret, and they simply tell them, “Yonderways.”

Later, when the snooty wife of the wealthy mill owner sticks her head out the car window and offers them a quarter, Buddy’s cousin refuses to barter, which makes the rich woman angry.

“That’s my last offer,” she says. “Goodness, woman, you can always get another one.””

“I doubt it,” says the cousin. “There’s never two of anything.”

In a world with an assembly-line mentality, cookie-cutter neighborhoods and products distinguishable only by their bar codes and serial numbers, it is a story for the season.