This date in history: December 4, xxxx – The feast of Saint Barbara.
Christmas tree cutting. Visited a new Christmas Tree farm this year, now that Jubilee Farms in Stockton, NJ has been sold (and the new owners are not yet offering cut-your-own trees from their farm.) Barclay Tree Farm in Cranbury, NJ is quite a bit smaller, and does not offer the amenities that Jubilee had (no hot cider or train display to be found here) but it does offer a decent selection of Fraser and Canaan firs. W. was on a mission to find a tree as big as him, and we had to convince him that a 3 1/2 foot tree might not be big enough to hold all of our ornaments (nor have enough room under the branches for all of Santa’s presents!) We instead selected one of the smallest trees we’ve ever had – a 6to 6 1/2 foot Fraser fir – but one certainly in keeping with my 2004 resolution to downsize.
Cutting down a Christmas tree is something I had never done as a child; in fact, in Levittown, I only ever knew Zsòka’s family to cut their own tree. My family almost always had an artificial tree at Christmas, and based on the prejudices I had acquired against real trees I was never too excited about the prospect of trekking into a frozen field to then proceed to lie on the ground and saw down a tree and haul it back to my car. Of course, times change, and after W. was born I came to embrace the importance of building warm family memories, and now I look forward to the annual Christmas tree cutting event.