The English Christmas Tree

Most people have an idyllic Dickensian mental picture of England at Christmastime. As a young American couple approaching our first Christmas in England’s Midlands area, Scott and I were enchanted by the thatched roofed cottages, the decorations at the local pub, and the brilliance of Harrods department store all decked out for the holiday. We soaked up the English traditions of Christmas pudding, Christmas crackers, and roast goose. For our first Christmas in Bedfordshire, we were looking forward to a real storybook Christmas.

Our American military base was a small “listening” base that had a big antenna, but did not have an airfield. We had a small base exchange and a small grocery store for essentials such as milk and toilet paper, but for any real shopping we had to travel to another American base about 45 minutes away or shop “on the economy” in the nearby village. Because the exchange rate was not friendly to the dollar, and we were young and poor, we avoided shopping off base as much as possible. However, we were determined to get a “real” English Christmas tree from a local garden center.

One cold Saturday in early December, we warmed up our old 1975, pea-green, BMW 535 (which we had bought third or fourth-hand), and headed out to the nearby village of Shefford to find a Christmas tree. Unlike in the US where every store on every corner sells Christmas trees in December, there was only one garden center that had trees for sale, and their merchandising method was a puzzle. Rather than having trees in stands and all fluffed out for inspection, all the trees were still in their net cocoons and leaning against the side of the building.

“How do you tell if it’s a good tree?” we asked the lot attendant. He eyed us as if we had taken leave of our senses, so we asked in a different way “How do you know if it doesn’t have a bare spot on one side?”

“If it does, you turn that side to the wall, you see” was the reply. He followed up with “How tall o’ tree do ya want?”

Evidently, English Christmas trees are not marketed by how pretty or uniform they are in shape, but rather simply by height. We slotted that little piece of cultural information away and stated “Seven feet will give us room for the stand and the angel at the top.”

“Bloody ‘ell! Are you sure? That’s a right big tree!” he said.

We were sure. The ceiling in our apartment was eight feet, so seven feet would give us enough to saw off a bit of the trunk at the bottom, too. Didn’t want it to dry out, you know. English houses tended to have lower ceilings than our American style base housing so we figured he didn’t get many requests for the taller trees.

He pointed to the end of the long line of trees and said, “Only ‘uns we have that are that tall are down there at t’ end.” We then noticed the trees were lined up from shortest to tallest, evidently to help make selection easier for customers and make the attendant’s job easier. “Are you really sure you want a seven-foot tree?” he asked again. We nodded and he led the way to the tallest trees, shaking his head and muttering something about “idiot Yanks” under his breath.

Seven-foot tree selected and strapped to the top of the Beemer like a trussed cow still in its netting, we headed home. We unloaded in the parking lot of the apartment and sawed the end off the trunk (so it wouldn’t dry out), then paused to consider our next move. It would be easier if we attached the tree stand to it while it was outside and still wrapped in the net binding. Then we could take it in without dribbling needles from the front door to the living room.

Anything that saved getting the vacuum out was a good idea because the vacuum caused a disturbance in the Force with our dogs, Clyde and Zoe. Clyde and Zoe were Chihuahuas and many things caused them to flip out – the vacuum, the doorbell, the mail coming through the mail slot, a fire truck going by. If we could avoid the vacuum, it would be a more peaceful evening. Attaching the stand outside seemed smart.

Our living room was small as was the rest of our two-story apartment. Downstairs was the kitchen and the living room/dining room area with a sliding glass door to the small fenced-in back yard. Upstairs had two bedrooms and a bathroom. Small, but still bigger than the semidetached house we had rented in the village off base, and much cheaper – as in free cheaper. It even had a washer and dryer, cable TV, and 110V electrical current!

We decided to put the tree in front of the sliding glass patio doors so all the neighbors could enjoy our Christmas spirit and admire our holiday creation. We took care to get it centered and make sure the trunk was straight in the stand. We decided if it had a bare spot, we could always rotate it to put that spot more out of sight.

Clyde and Zoe, after initially panicking at the sight of a large foreign object entering their domain, had cautiously emerged from behind the couch and were sniffing around the base. You could almost see their little brains thinking “Alright – an indoor bathroom!” Clyde was probably more excited than Zoe, because as the male member of the canine pair, it was his job to baptize anything vertical in the house at least once.

The four of us gathered around the tree and admired our selection. The height was perfect – as it stood in the stand, the top missed the ceiling by about 5 inches, just enough for the angel to sit comfortably on the summit. I had our box of Christmas decorations ready and the dogs had taken positions on the floor cushion to watch the goings on. It was time to cut the netting and decorate our real English Christmas tree.

We debated briefly over whether it would be better to cut the netting sleeve from the top down or from the bottom up before agreeing it probably did not matter. Scott slipped his pocketknife under the bottom edge of the netting tied tightly around the trunk and began to saw at the nylon cords. After a few parted, the rest started to part on their own. In fact, the netting seemed to unzip as it if had a quick release feature. In a split second, the entire cocoon split with a huge ripping sound and the bound branches sprung outward like a rapidly expanding shock wave.

Humans sprang backwards falling over coffee tables and love seats while dogs ran for their lives to hide behind the sofa. The words from Monty Python “Run away! Run away!” echoed in my head as my feet seemed stuck in quicksand. It was like a nightmare! You know you need to run, but you just can’t seem to move fast enough. I was about to be killed by a conifer!

As the netting parted, the tree just seemed to grow bigger and bigger! It was eating our living room! In what seemed like an eternity yet still a split second, the tree reached critical mass and the branches stopped expanding, just short of the center of the room.

“Holy smokes!” I uttered from behind the love seat.

We learned of another element of a British Christmas that afternoon. English Christmas trees are as wide as they are tall. No wonder the lot attendant thought we were nuts! This tree filled most of our living room!

We also learned something else – the inevitable bare spot was irrelevant because you could see directly through the tree. Unlike American Christmas trees that are pruned and bred to be the quintessential “Christmas tree” shape with lots of branch ends for ornaments, English Christmas trees were shaped like toilet bowl brushes. There is a ring of branches that are perfectly perpendicular to the trunk, then the trunk is bare for about 6 inches until another ring of branches grows. In between the branch rings, you can look directly through the tree to someone standing on the other side and have a face-to-face conversation.

Recovering from the shock and awe, we considered our options. We could ditch the tree and go with an artificial one bought from the base exchange, but that required the engineering of getting the tree back out of the house without the benefit of the netting. We were not even sure we could get it out the sliding patio door without some serious work with the handsaw. We were stuck with this tree at least until after the New Year, maybe longer.

That year we started a new Christmas tradition of opening a bottle of wine when we decorate the tree. If we had had whiskey on hand, Jack Daniel would have become a holiday visitor, but we only had chardonnay. The situation definitely called for some holiday cheer of some sort, and even today, we continue our wine-and-tree tradition.

Because of the tree’s size, we had to purchase more lights just to cover it. We cleaned out the stock of tree lights at the little Base Exchange. It took hours to string the lights on the tree because they could not be strung the traditional way (round and round), but rather had to follow the branches, going from the trunk to the tip and back. Every ornament we owned, including the ugly ones given to me by former middle school students, went on that tree.

It was a sight to behold when lit. I am sure our house became a ground navigational aid for air traffic to the nearby air base during heavy English fogs. I know we were the talk of the neighborhood. I was very thankful our electricity bill was included in our housing allowance because I am sure we were pulling the maximum amount of current for that thing.

It was a couple of days before the dogs would come out from behind the couch. Soon, they were stretching out in the light of the tree as if it was a band of sun shining in the window on a cold day. From their little short perspective, the tree must have looked like a Sequoyah. I just know that every year thereafter when the Christmas decorations box came out, the dogs went into hiding.

That English Christmas tree lives on our in family legends as one of those incidents in life that just makes you wonder how you survived it. The next year, we purchased an artificial tree that served us well for several years. We have ventured back to the real tree side now, but we still have a secret fear our selection will try to kill us when we are not looking.