Oh, Christmas Tree!
December 2003


We stride, six of us, across the school paddock. My brother, John, leads the way, brandishing dad’s old crosscut saw, Spear & Jackson flashing in the summer sun. In defile we march, in order of age: John, Betty, then me (the lucky third), Mary, Jany and Robyn. John is fourteen, Robyn just three. We seek a Christmas tree, and announce our quest to the world -
‘Oh, Christmas tree! Oh, Christmas tree!
How merry are your branches.’
This is sung to the tune of ‘Oh, Tannenbaum’. It is the only line of the song we know, so we sing it over and over as we walk, a rallying cry that might set any young pine tree quivering with anxiety. Our weapons are various: the crosscut saw; a blunt axe. Mary waves an old tomahawk. Jany carries pruning shears. Robyn labours at the back of the line - ‘Oh, Tristris tree! Oh, Tristris tree!’ - in her three year old’s piping voice.

We slip through a wire fence, across the grounds of the maternity home and into a thistle paddock that is Roy Campbell’s farm. Our song dies as we approach the group of gnarly old pines, weathered by years of southerly gales that whip in over Foveaux Strait or sweep down from the Fiordland mountains. We’re not quite sure that we’re allowed to be here, and this faint premonition that we may be trespassing fuels our excitement. We prowl around the line of trees, gazing up, seeking out the perfect branch. There is much discussion and argument.
‘That one’s good cos it’s bushy.’
‘No it’s not. Look at the big gap half way up.’
‘This one! It’s got cones!’
‘Too high.’
Round and round, like Pooh and Piglet tracking the Heffalump.

Eventually we agree on a suitable branch, a noble and heavily-fronded branch that is far and away, we tell each other, the best on the trees. As always, we send John up with the saw. He climbs expertly, and then eases himself out along the branch, which bends gracefully towards the watchers on the ground, as if in homage to us, its nemesis.
‘Don’t saw on the side closest to the trunk!’ That’s Betty, reminding us of a previous, less successful, Christmas tree hunt. It sets Mary and Jany giggling and shouting. Robyn joins in, until John shuts them up with a growl from the tree.

He saws. The branch bends, cracks and settles to the ground with a sigh. We whoop with delight and rush to inspect our prize. On the ground, however, this branch looks a poor thing: too bushy at the base - too thin up top. We abandon it and resume our search. After we’ve repeated this scene three or four times, and branches lie like corpses, we return to the first one, decide it isn’t so bad after all – ‘nothing we can’t fix up with a few extra bits’, says John – and lift it up for the return journey.

Anybody watching from the windows of the maternity home would have observed a strange sight: a large pine tree branch wandering erratically across the school ground, propelled by six pairs of gumboots, and singing ‘Oh, Christmas tree!’ in a muffled, discordant voice.

Within the moving tree my face is pricked by pine needles, my nose itchy with pollen. Mary sneezes loudly behind me. I am giddy with the scent of pine and the warm, enveloping crush of the branch. My whole world is in this Christmas tree, with my brother and my sisters.

Robyn, encumbered with axe and saw, begins to wail. We stop and Betty picks her up, balances her on one hip while continuing to support the branch on her shoulder. We set off again, Robyn gripping a twig, beaming through her tears.

We cast our prize on the back lawn and, clamouring with the elation of the hunt, troop inside to tell mum. She surveys our tree with a practiced eye. We wait expectantly, breathless, for her judgement. Eventually she nods, declares that, with a bit of trimming here, and some extra foliage there, it will make a good tree. We cheer. John is sent off to the henhouse for the cream can to prop the tree in.

Later, in the evening, we unwrap the nativity set, one of mum’s prized possessions, brought from Holland years before. The tree, glittering with lights and decorations, seems to bend down to embrace the cardboard cave in which Mary, Joseph, the ox and ass, the baby, are tenderly displayed. Tim, the cat, delicately picks his way through the figurines and curls around the manger, one of our Christmas rituals that brings smiles and giggles from the younger kids.

I sit in front of the tree, giddy with excitement, and gaze into its branches. I am filled with wonder.

Thirty-five years later, as I reflect on Christmas as a child, these are the memories that spring to mind. I recall almost nothing about presents, food, visitors or parties. To me, the spirit of Christmas is a child gazing into the branches of a tree, gazing beyond the lights and decorations, into the folds and shadows of the pine needles, and discovering there, with wonder and delight, the life and hope, peace and re-birth that is the Christmas message. As an adult, the echo of that child still sends a thrill through me.

I wish you a Merry Christmas.