There is one almost certain truth. Nothing today is as good as we remember it from the past. That is true of Christmas Trees today versus twenty years ago. I recall going with my father as a child to pick out our family tree. We normally went to a small lot were local vendor held their selection. If worse came to worst, we bought our tree from a local gas station lot. I recall most of the tress weren’t that full or tall, probably no more than five feet, with an occasional six footer.

Nowadays there’s none of the pageantry, or even the selection when one goes to the local lots. Most the trees appear like shrubberies not worthy of decorating; Charlie Brown trees. The venders complain of the weather, or over demand. The truth is there isn’t the proper planning in planting on valuable land.

My wife grew up on a hundred-plus acre farm in central Indiana. They grew their own trees. When they picked out that year’s Christmas tree, they didn’t cut it down. They dug it up, and kept it alive during the holidays. When New Year passed, the tree was replanted, and it remains alive today amongst a forest of old Christmas trees dropping their pine cones and repopulating the species. Few people maintain this practice today; too much work.

If one doubts the practice of replanting, they only need look at the Norway spruce at the Rockefeller Center. Many years ago, that was a replant in Florida, New York. The real reason nothing is as good today as it was twenty years ago, is because people stopped putting the work into keeping the old ways alive, and went instead to the economy of mass production. Will there even be real Christmas trees in another twenty years? There will be on a farm in central Indiana, and a few places where they replanted.

Have a happy holiday, and prosperous New Year!