Real or not?

There isn’t a Christmas I can remember, as a child, when my family and I didn’t make the annual trek out into the bush for a real Christmas tree.
Most times my dad had gone out earlier in the year and tagged the perfect tree with ribbon so we could find it in all the snow.
Cutting the tree down and hauling it back home, cutting it again so it didn’t hit the living room ceiling, and then watching my dad stand it up in the little red metal tree stand were as much a part of the holiday package as my grandmother’s plum pudding on Christmas Day.
Sure, a real tree meant watering it daily and tracking picky green needles across the rug–sometimes finding them in your socks months after Christmas was over.
But the smell of evergreen was heavenly.
Times have changed, though. While many still prefer real Christmas trees, you don’t have to go to the bush to get one. Tree lots full of fir, balsam, and pine are pretty much at our fingertips.
And for the person who doesn’t want any of the fuss and muss of the real thing–go artificial.
“Artificial is the answer,” said local resident Lila Sanders. “It’s so much easier. You don’t have the pine needles all over the house. Sure, it’s not 100 percent natural but we have a good one that’s really bushy.”
Sanders said she and husband, Wilf, switched to an artificial Christmas tree years ago after their children, Scott and Craig, left home for university–a change that, at the time, didn’t go over too well with their sons.
“They said ‘We’re not coming home if you don’t get a real tree,’” she chuckled.
Kathy Smith, merchandising supervisor at the Northern Do-it center here, said they had stocked up on eight different kinds of artificial Christmas trees this year and sales were out the door–with price tags anywhere from $30-$230.
“Sales have done really well. I was surprised,” she said. “The bigger, fuller ones are gone, but we have some of the ‘Charlie Browners’ still left.
“The fibre-optics trees are also really popular,” Smith added, noting they were a big hit with seniors and restaurant owners.
Doug Kitowski, who runs his own trucking business here, gave a thumbs up to an artificial Christmas tree–something he and his wife, Linda, have enjoyed for almost five years.
“My wife really likes it and I do, too. It’s a very beautiful tree,” he said. “Sure, it’s artificial, but nobody questions that. It‘s cleaner and there’s less chance of fire.”
< *c>The real thing
Every year, around Dec. 11, Doug and Diane Hoffman, and their son, Scott, have stuck with tradition–jumping in the truck or onto a snowmachine and heading from their home near the Seven-Mile bridge across the frozen lake in search of a Christmas tree.
And when you want the real thing, even open water won’t stop you.
“We went by boat [Saturday],” Diane Hoffman chuckled earlier this week. “It was the first time I can remember that the lake wasn’t frozen [by now].
“We went [anyway] because a real tree is Christmas,” she stressed.
For Elaine Caron and Paul Fischer, finding the perfect Christmas tree this year will be a “real” adventure and a first-time experience for the young couple.
“This will be our first Christmas here together and we decided to start it with a real Christmas tree,” Caron, co-ordinator of the district Substance Abuse and Prevention program, noted Monday.
The couple hails from Timmins and usually head there for the holidays to spend it with family.
“We’ll probably go [to the bush] on the weekend and find a ‘Charlie Brown’ tree,” she smiled. “It would be easier to go [uptown] and buy a tree but in the spirit of Christmas, we’ll make a day of it.”
Margaret Sedgwick, head librarian at the Fort Frances Public Library, grew up on a farm in southern Ontario. Her childhood memories included the annual bush trip to get the so-called “perfect” Christmas tree.
“We would go far back in the bush and slip over the fence and steal a tree from the next farmer’s property,” she admitted.
“My sister married the son of that farmer and eventually found out that they had done the same thing–slipped over the fence onto our property and stolen a tree,” she laughed.
“I guess the tree is always greener on the other side,” she related.