Crystalized Holiday Memories

Our traditions can hang our grief heavy next to joy on the branches of the tree.

The snow was deep. It went up to my knees that year. I remember the rose color that burned on my cheeks from the wind blowing fresh snow against my face as we ventured into the woods on our yearly Christmas tree trip as a family. I was little, just 5 or 6 at the time. The sun was high that morning but hidden behind the light gray clouds that hung with lake-effect snow that the weatherman couldn’t predict. My small self was tucked into a coat, mittens, and swishing snow pants.

We wandered through the woods with Jack Buckhorn at his tree farm to bring home a tree that would fill our home with life and the scent of pine as winter entered our days and the days began to lengthen once again in northern Michigan. This was the place we always went to get our tree. A real tree. The imperfect kind and hopefully didn’t contain wildlife like the one in Christmas Vacation (my favorite movie). One that would tell a story and filled our home with its unique imperfections.

I wish I had an image from that day, but instead, I am sharing this one with my son just before he was 1. Our first Christmas back in Michigan.

Mr. Buckhorn’s farm was in Alanson, Michigan, about 25 minutes from our downtown house in Harbor Springs. We followed the roads around ponds and lakes that held stories from my parents’ childhoods. With every curve of the snow-covered road, I am reminded of how this area in the north is generationally our family’s home.

Though we did this every year, this particular tree fetching is cemented in my memory from my childhood. I remember following Jack through the woods with my parents. He had a red wool Filson Mackinaw trapper hat (named after Mackinaw city just an hour up the road), and my dad was wearing a near-matching Filson red wool Mackinaw suit. The book Christmas at Long Pond, which I read as a child, was coming to life at this very moment as we followed Jack through the pathless woods to the tree he felt was perfect for our family.

My little brother was with us and was just shy of a year old. His birthday was just days before Christmas and this was his first time to get a tree. He sat bundled in a snowsuit and blankets in a wood sled similar to the ones they still sell from L.L. Bean. The snow fell off the large pines around us and floated like butterflies in the distilled morning light with every light gust of wind that blew and smelled of static and fresh water. Everything felt pristine and beautiful in this moment as a child. I remember feeling my long hair blowing in the air that, even now as an adult, smells only like Michigan can smell when the lake-effect snow blows in.

Upon finding this tree that grew just for this moment for our family, Jack and my dad together cut down the tree ceremoniously, and it hit the deep, fluffy snow with nearly no sound. It was a soft and glowy moment of what it was to be a child growing up in northern Michigan in the early 90’s.

After the tree was attached to our truck, we always ended our moment of getting the tree with a warm-up at Bob’s Place. Tromping in my snow boots on the brown snow of the city made the white snow from the woods feel far away.

Many times, this was the sort of view from our hike in the woods for our tree to have brunch at Bob’s Place

I remember sitting and ordering pancakes and warming my hands with a cup of hot chocolate as I waited for the maple syrup-soaked cakes to come. The snow from my hat and coat had fallen off and melted on the musty old carpet in the cozy pub-like setting in this sleepy little town where only locals came in for a meal this time of year.

In all the ways this felt like a Norman Rockwell moment, it was only so in memory. This was one of the last Christmases I have memories of because the following few months resulted in the loss of my grandfather, which shifted my childhood in many ways. For a while, the darkness and confusion I felt as a child grieving him blocked away the memories of parts of my childhood I am still trying to retrieve. Yet, this memory's crystal beauty was one of only a few from those years that didn’t shatter as easily as the ice that formed on the lake that winter. This moment became pinnacle as I grew into adulthood.