12/11/2008
Why We Decorate Our Christmas Tree
My family and I visited Diasugi Christmas Tree Farm in Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory, and were charmed by the farm’s holiday shop. Dianne had converted a small farm building into the essence of an old-time farm cabin complete with braided rugs, rocking chairs and a wood burning, pot-bellied stove. My family enjoyed the hot chocolate and admired the beautifully-decorated Christmas Trees and wreaths in the cozy bungalow. I took home some of their ideas home for the decoration of our own family tree.
Decorating the tree is an important family tradition. Our family likes to play Christmas carols, sip some mulled cider or wines, pass a plate of cookies and while we work together to create a beautiful tree memory. I alternate the color themes – one year using white and gold decorations, and a red and silver decorations the next. But, even though the theme may change, my collection of Lenox ornaments (my sister Anne has sent one each year since we married in 1977) always makes an appearance -- as does the small paper box ornament Mark made in grade school, and Christina and Brittany’s Baby’s First Christmas ornaments. Mark always places the angel at the tree top.
After the lights, ornaments and ribbons have been hung, we tuck the presents underneath and take pictures in front of the tree. The final step is to turn off the room lights to get the full effect of the Christmas tree decorations. We usually agree it’s the “best tree ever.”
The earliest record we have of the practice of decorating a Christmas tree dates from 1510. It tells how a merchants’ guild in Riga, Latvia, decked a tree with flowers on Christmas Eve. In the next hundred years, similar observances were recorded across Europe. Other symbolic decorations soon joined the flowers.
By the seventeenth century, decorations that provided food for both spirit and body covered the German tree, called the Christbaum, the “Christ tree.” Legend has it that the first Christmas tree in America was set up in Trenton, New Jersey, by those Hessian soldiers George Washington crossed the Delaware to attack on Christmas night, 1776. While there is no firm evidence this actually happened, there are records of Christmas trees in the homes of peaceful Germans who settled in Pennsylvania over the next fifty years.
Mary Stewart
12/11/2008 4:45 PM
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12/04/2008
Keeping Your Fresh Cut Chrstmas Tree Alive
Why is my daffodil blue? Do you remember the experiment we all conducted in grade school – when you stuck the daffodil in a glass of water colored with blue food color? The flower turned blue! Within a few hours the daffodil had sucked up some of the water with the blue coloring and raced it to the edge of its blossoms to keep them fresh.
For a period of time, plants continue to live and take in water and air (metabolize) even after they are picked or harvested. Christmas Trees act in the same way. If they are kept in water and away from forces that will dry them out such as heaters, candles, fireplaces and sunny windows, they will stay alive for a few weeks. Living Christmas Trees continue to absorb water, take in carbon dioxide and add oxygen to the air in your home.
Within a couple of hours of being harvested, the cells in a Christmas Tree’s trunk collapse and seal over. Once the trunk had sealed, the tree can’t take up any water.
You can keep your tree alive and beautiful by helping it drink water. When you get your tree home, saw ½” off the trunk to open the cells back up so it can drink water again. Place the tree in a bucket of water or in the tree stand right away. If you don’t have a saw at home, ask someone at the tree lot to make a fresh cut for you before you put the tree on your car. Then hurry straight home without making a detour to the shopping mall!
Your tree will drink 1-2 gallons of water the first day, up to 1 gallon the second day and 1 quart the third day. While it won’t drink as fast over the next few days, make sure to check the water level each day to keep it plenty full. The end of the trunk needs to always be in water or else the exposed trunk will seal over again and stop drinking.
Mary Stewart
12/04/2008 10:56 AM
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11/26/2008
How To Select Your Perfect Christmas Tree
So many trees…so little time. The Christmas Tree lot is jam-packed with evergreen beauties and your mission is to choose the best tree of the bunch. How do you select a Christmas Tree anyway? Well, with so many to choose from it can be overwhelming, so my advice is to make sure you are stoked up with a latte or hot chocolate before you start. Then, jump in and begin the quest.
I learned how to select Christmas Trees as a young girl on our Christmas Tree farm. My father, a forest scientist, would stand in his green wool field coat and fedora hat and point to our Christmas Tree plantation that stretched up one side of the hill and down the other and say, “Go pick out our family Christmas Tree, Babe.” The pressure was on. I had to find and tag the most gorgeous of the gorgeous. After a long hike through the entire farm, I would crown my choice. Some years I would select a Douglas-fir tree, other years a grand fir, a noble fir or a scotch pine.
So here are my tips…first, think about the height. Measure the room before you leave your house, so you know how big of a tree to buy. Think about the size of the tree stand and the angel on top, and subtract that sum from the height of the ceiling. Lots and fields have tags on the trees indicating their height or have measuring sticks for you to use. The tree always looks smaller in the lot then it really is, so don’t let your eyes play tricks on you!
Look for a tree that is fresh and fragrant, with needles that are soft to the touch -- not dry and brittle. A shape that is cone-like and full, with evenly spaced branches, will please your eye. Some people like a really compact tree, while others prefer some space between the branches – that’s a personal choice. Make sure the size of the tree trunk will fit into your tree stand, or buy a tree with a stand attached to it. And finally, the color -- trees come in different shades of green – from blue to true green to silver. Select the color and needle length that strikes your fancy and fits in with your decorating plans this season.
Mary Stewart
11/26/2008 8:26 AM
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11/25/2008
How Christmas Trees are Harvested and Shipped
Our Christmas Trees are shipped all over the world. You’ll find trees from Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory in Mazatlan, Mexico and Nygoya, Japan as well as Riverside, California. It’s fun to think that, as farmers, we are providing such an important family tradition to so many people in so many different countries.
You’d be interested to watch us harvest the Christmas Trees! The harvest process starts when we walk through the Christmas Tree plantation and tie a colorful ribbon on the trees that are ready to be harvested. For example, the 6-foot Douglas-fir trees are tagged with orange ribbons and the 7-foot noble firs get a white ribbon.
Next, a crew with chainsaws walks through the rows and cuts down the trees that have been tagged. (If you can handle a chain saw, we could probably use your help!) Then, we pick up the trees (we can’t drag them, because they might get dirty) and carry them to the flatbed trailer pulled by a tractor. The tractor takes the trees to the barnyard, or other flat place that is graveled so the heavy trucks don’t get stuck. The trees are unloaded and stacked.
The trees are slid through a baler, which wraps them up neatly with baling twine. This keeps the tree limbs from getting broken during shipping, and allows us to get more trees into a truck. Then, we tie a tag with our farm name on a branch close to each trunk (we call these butt tags) and say good-bye to the trees as they move up the conveyor belt and plop into the truck. Trees are transported in what we call “farm trucks” – large trucks with high sides – or semi trucks. My job has been to stand with a “tally-wacker” that counts the trees as they go on to the truck.
Hot chocolate breaks are a must on harvest days.
Mary Stewart
11/25/2008 11:53 AM
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11/24/2008
Christmas Trees Harvest is Busy and Beautiful
There’s a beehive of activity on all of Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory Christmas Tree Farms right now. We are smack dab in middle of Christmas Tree harvest and shipping. Our families, our harvest crews and big trucks laden with Christmas Trees are buzzing all around me as I write this. It’s quite a sight to see!
Here’s how we do it – Christmas Tree farms look just like any other farm – we plant our crop by rows in a field, just as corn or strawberries are grown. We call a field of Christmas Trees a plantation. When we plant the trees as 2-year old seedlings, we have to allow plenty of space for the trees to grow wider over the next 6 years, and enough space for us to walk by and give them an annual “haircut.” Now that the plantation is full grown, it’s time to harvest!
The views from our Christmas Tree plantations are breath-taking regardless of the time of year. If you were here, you’d see thousands of acres of Christmas Trees dressed in their natural silver-green splendor covering the valley and foothills of Mt. Hood. Looming on the horizon of the plantations is the stately Mt. Hood – she must be one of the most beautiful mountains in America. The mountain and surrounding countryside certainly makes a beautiful setting to farm in.
Well, more trucks are coming in to be loaded – I’d better grab my boots and gloves and get back to work!
Mary Stewart
11/24/2008 01:12 PM
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11/03/2008
The Tradition of the Christmas Tree
Since the very first Christmas in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago, Christmas has been a family-oriented holiday packed with traditions. One of its most enduring traditions is the Christmas Tree. In millions of homes across America and worldwide, Christmas Trees grown in Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory give an individual, distinctive tribute to the holiday spirit.
“It just wouldn’t seem like Christmas without a tree” is a sentiment shared in most homes. Actually, the ritual of bringing a living tree inside is much older than Christmas itself. Long before the birth of Jesus, men and women would gather round evergreen trees during the month with the shortest days in the year. No matter how dead and brown the rest of nature appeared, the evergreens testified that life would continue. People began to cut the branches, or whole trees, and took them inside as symbols of enduring life.
We gently raise Christmas Trees in plantations here so that families everywhere may continue their important tradition. There are more than 300 family Christmas Tree farms here in Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory and we work year round to grow more trees than any other region in the country. I guess this is the Christmas Tree Capital of the World!
I invite you to make a tradition of visiting this Blog throughout the holiday season for more tidbits and ideas from the Christmas Tree Farms of Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory.
Mary Stewart
11/03/2008 03:11 PM
Please be advised, all comments and stories will become the property of VisitMyTree.com and will be reviewed by Ev’rett and his companions for inappropriate use of language or subject matter prior to distribution, and not all posts will necessarily be made available to the public.
