I am home with my parents in New Mexico for the holidays, thousands of miles away from the ocean. I can’t help but think about what my Christmas will look like in the middle of the Atlantic next year, or more to the point, what it won’t look like. It’s not going to look like the painted mesas and ocher arroyos of the high desert we drove through on our way up to the Jemez Mountains on our annual Christmas Tree Hunt. Outsiders may not realize that New Mexico is cold in the winter and has some spectacular, tall mountains. With an average elevation in the state of 5700 feet you’re never more than an hour from snow.
After procuring our Forest Service permit for up to 20 ft of pine tree we drove through cleared and salted highway higher and higher until we turned off onto a snow covered forest road. My Dad drove until it felt like the wheels were slipping just enough to tempt fate. Then we went a little further until we found enough space to turn the car around. From here our expedition continued on foot.
We bundled up, not needing much more than a sweater, jeans and long johns as one of the 300 plus days of sunshine in the state usually coincide with the Christmas Tree Hunt. After two hours comparing trees looking for height (up to 15 feet), reasonable symmetry, and limb strength (we have a ton of ornaments) we found one that all agreed would be “The most Beautiful Tree ever.” Everyone took a few swings of the ax before hiking it to the car and strapping it firmly but gently to the roof. A half hour later on the way back home we stop to reward our efforts with a traditional New Mexican meal doused in red and green chile, the states iconic and delectably spicy vegetable.
For several years, during and after college I would come home and find a tree in the house already decorated and I seemed to have lost my connection with the holiday. The trees in these years were lovely but from a parking lot close to home with no tromp through the snow with my family. Three years ago I asked my parents if they would wait for me and if we could go back to the mountains for our tree to reinstate this tradition. It filled what was missing and ever since this simple ritual was the connection between my Christmas past and Christmas future. I am profoundly thankful.
Christmas Day at sea will break all traditions for the four of us. Emails will come from home; letters, saved and well taken care of in plastic bags will be carefully opened. Phone calls will bring us some facsimile of home. We will sing carols and talk about our family’s customs and try and honor them, even if it’s just listening.
I hope our traditions continue without us. We will miss, and be missed on this day not because of the day, but because of what the people we care most dearly for have made of it. I will be sad that I do not get to go to the mountains for our tree, but sadder still if no one else goes.
Melancholy is not what inspires these ruminations but rather a hope to bring perspective that it is our actions between our family and friends that make Christmas, not things. We will have a Christmas to remember on the boat, and because of that it will make all the others sweeter still.
What are your traditions? How would you honor them if away? Give us some ideas.
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