Lancaster, OH 
December 25, 1987

Dear Colin,

This is a birthday letter for you, although I am writing it on Christmas Day. 
That is because I may not have time to write it a bit later, just before your birthday. 
You may want to read it to Paulie, and share it with your Mother and Dad. 
I've decided to write down some of the things I remember from a long time ago. 
There will be several letters like this through the years.  Let me know what you think of them. 

This one is going to be about getting Christmas trees.  I never bought one until we were 
married and your Dad had already been born.  When I was growing up, we always went out in 
the woods to cut one.  Usually, we cut an Eastern hemlock because there were lots of them and 
they had close, thick branches. The needles didn't stay on very well, but that just meant 
that we had to sweep the carpet when we took the tree down. Usually your Aunt Lois or 
one of the younger children would go along.  I would carry the axe.  We never found a 
tree right away.  Most of the time there was snow, because Northwestern Pennsylvania has 
more than we do here or you have in Virginia.  There were always tracks to look at. 
Sometimes they would be the small delicate tracings of a weasel, with an occasional 
line in the snow between them, where his tail dragged.  Often it would be a rabbit, 
with the large hind paws hitting the ground in front of the front ones.  Also, there
would be an occasional grey fox track, with each track straight in front of the other. 
That was the way you decided that it was a grey fox rather than the neighbor's dog out for a prowl. 

Then there was always the run to cross, and maybe a swamp to negotiate. 
At Christmas time they wouldn't be frozen over hard, so we would have to jump from 
grass clump to rock to old log. Inevitably we sometimes missed and got a boot full of snow water. 
The trees that were the greenest and prettiest from a distance were always too big when one got
up close, requiring us to hunt around for one that was quite young, and not too sheltered, or
it would be too thin.  After we had looked at many different trees, we would cut one down. 
Most of the time we would have to drag it at least a half-mile to get it home. 

In those days we had to make popcorn strings and save tinsel from year to year. 
Part of the time we had icicles made from thin strips of lead foil. They were heavy, 
but didn't tangle very much.  Each year some would get lost and we would have fewer the next year. 
There were no lights, because we did not have electricity.  We had some little candleholders that
you could clip on the tree, but I don't remember any candles.  That was just as well because an
open candle flame on a hemlock tree is a very real fire hazard! 

Getting a tree for the schoolhouse was also done the same way. 
A few of the older boys were sent off to the woods with an axe to find a suitable tree. 
We went at noon-time, but it was traditional to always take a little longer than the noon 
hour to find a tree and get it back to school.  We would take time to tell stories and look 
for animal signs in the woods.  There would be some grumbling from the teacher for being late, 
but no one was ever punished for lateness that day. Now it is not legal in most states 
to have a live Christmas Tree in a school, and who would think of sending some sixth 
graders off to the woods with an axe!  I certainly had lots of good times out in the 
woods while I was growing up. Most often I was by myself, but sometimes one of my brothers 
or sisters would be along.

In another letter I will tell you about the very earliest things that I can remember-getting 
lost in a store at Christmas and playing with our goats.  For now, this letter is already quite long.
We hope you have a very nice birthday, Colin, and a chance to enjoy experiences that will be 
your memories when you are much older.