Next week is my birthday.  It’s not a milestone birthday, but there’s something that feels heroic in turning another year older after this hell-storm of a year. 

Shortly after I was born, my grandfather planted seedlings for Christmas trees.  The thinking, I was told, was that around the time I would be ready to enter college, the trees would be sizable enough to harvest, and the proceeds would go toward my (and, later, other grandchildren’s) college funds.  Growing a Christmas tree isn’t the easiest:  You can’t, as my grandfather says in the article, “set it and forget it.”  Christmas trees require yearly shaping, shearing, and tending.  It’s a year-round, decades-long endeavor, to grow a tree that – ultimately - is cut and enjoyed for a short time.  As an adult, I think about the work that went into growing 400+ Christmas trees, and my heart swells.

But “why” Christmas trees?  My grandfather was well-versed in a variety of crops given his time with NC’s Agricultural Extension Service.  If it was just about squirreling away money for his grandchildren’s college funds, that’s a noble and generous goal, but there would have been much easier ways to make that happen.  All without incurring the risk of handing a stranger an exceedingly sharp saw to go cut down their own tree.   Until this year, I looked at this endeavor through the myopic lens that all this work – the decades tending the trees – was all for the grandchildren’s benefit. The crop choice was fun, but arbitrary.

Articles like this from the family archives have me re-thinking this late-in-life-side-hustle that my grandfather enjoyed.  Christmas trees were more than a means to an end: It was a way for him to revisit one of the happier parts of his childhood, and share that joy with the broader community.  He wanted that connection – past, present, future – that Christmas trees afford.  He wanted to connect with people during a joyful time and be part of that broader family story that you tell:  “We used to cut our own Christmas Trees on Bailey Tree Farms.”    Legacy. Permanence. Weaving yourself into the broader, collective narrative.  Those are things I can appreciate in a new light in 2020. 

To state the obvious:  None of that happened overnight.  To achieve his goal of bringing people to the farm to cut their own Christmas trees took over a decade of work. Difficult, outside, thoughtful work. The project didn’t get easier because his intentions were good, or that he was undertaking it voluntarily.  And success wasn’t guaranteed.  In my moments of deep frustration throughout this year, I’ve had to keep those tenets top of mind.  The parallels one can draw between selling Christmas Trees and face masks are limited:  Christmas Trees don’t evoke the same derision as face masks.  The Christmas Tree side-hustle was decidedly lower stakes than starting a business that employs people during pandemic and a time of deep social unrest.  But to do the work required giving myself permission to find joy in the fact that I am building something, regardless of its future success or audience.   

I hope you have found moments of joy despite the challenges presented by this year.  I hope you have planted seeds (actual or metaphorical) that will take root and bring joy to future generations.  From NC, we wish you a safe and happy holiday, and a joyful new year.

Space + Grace,

Meredith