The Jon-a-gold Christmas Tree

My older far-flung children and I had a wonderful time chatting on facebook this afternoon.  Five of us scattered clear across the country.  So fun to connect together.  I could even see who was reading the messages back and forth in little light print at the bottom of the page.  I felt like a detective spy!  The primary topic of our communication was Christmas trees.  Our tradition in years gone by has been to dig up a Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm.  Often that has meant a rather unruly root ball with the tree sitting in a wheelbarrow in the living room for weeks.  One year gardener husband was flat on his back with sciatica for days after digging up the tree.  That year the tree never even got in the house and was decorated by the front door.  After the trees are enjoyed for a couple of weeks, the tradition is to plant them somewhere on our property.  They are always thoughtfully named in honour of someone of importance for us that year.  There was an Uncle Doug tree after our much loved nephew who came to live with us for a time as an adult, a Dorie tree after a Hungarian student who was with us one Christmas, and even a Crystal tree after one of our newly adopted daughters.  Unfortunately her tree died three times. It was somewhat troubling to us as a family, but did at least reflect our perseverance!  You may be puzzled about how a tree can have three lives. My determined and frugal husband takes back the dead trees to the nursery as  they are bought with a living guarantee. The guarantee does not cover our family stress, however.  The Christmas trees were not the only thing testing our  perseverance, so finally something had to give and we abandoned the whole digging up the tree routine.  I went for the Great Canadian Superstore sales and have quite enjoyed the ease of the cut trees.  Last year gardener husband saw a great deal on fake trees and went to huge lengths to buy what he felt would be a unique and special  artificial tree.  Christmas has its stress around here and somehow the poor artificial tree became the lightning rod for quite a family ruckus.  As much as an artificial tree made sense, it was a significant loss  for me.  Although I had initially endorsed the switching to a fake tree, once it actually arrived I felt like I was losing my soul along with every other thing that I  had come to value in my life.  I was missing the piney smell and the symbolism of the tree's green life emerging in our midst.  Coping with a stressed and unreasonable wife, poor husband returned that tree too, with no replacements this time.  We all vowed to quietly skirt the Christmas tree issue for now.  Until today.  Older daughter had forgotten about the angry artificial return and wrote to suggest that we leave the fake tree in its fake box in the attic.  We all reluctantly remembered the angry ruckus and switched quickly to the plans for trees this year.  As they sit at their computers studying, far flung kids are making plans to resurrect the digging up the tree tradition.
This year the tree will be the Jon-a-gold tree.  We are hoping we can find a place of good nutritious soil that is not too wet for his roots.  We want him to live and survive in our family garden.  Husband is thinking we might even try planting in a prominent position in the front yard.  A new position and a radical departure from the back yard plantings previously.  Jon is indeed a man of a golden heart.  He does have a prominent place in our lives.  He will be spending much of Christmas with us, and I call him my newest adopted son!  Welcome for Christmas Jonathan.  We love you and are looking forward to you being with us in the family garden.