A couple special guests join me for my favorite family Christmas tree stories.
The music in this episode is O Christmas Tree by Julius H. from Pixabay.
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Welcome to the Postcards From Palisade Podcast. I’m Lisa McNamara. Today, in honor of the holiday season, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite Christmas tree stories from my family storybook. And I have two very special guests joining me by Zoom to help provide commentary on these stories.
Mom: Hi, Lisa. This is Mom.
Dad: Hi, Lisa. It’s Dad. Otherwise known as Bob and Carolyn McNamara.
This year, Paul and I cut our first live Christmas tree for our own home. We’ve spent over 20 Christmases together, but we usually don’t get a tree, or we’ll get a tiny one from the grocery store. There was one year I even made a tree out of a box and hung ornaments on it with pushpins. That was our first year in Palisade and we had a lot of boxes lying around.
But this year, we joined in the beloved local tradition of buying a National Forest Service Christmas tree permit, driving up to the Grand Mesa National Forest, hiking off into the snowy woods, and coming back out with our own festive, patchy, scraggly little tree.
Cutting your own tree is such a proud Colorado tradition that it’s hard to find a tree anywhere else in western Colorado. Sure, there are a few at the grocery and hardware stores and you can buy one from the Boy Scouts’ fundraisers, but these trees, even the ones bought with good intentions, seem to be the trees of second choice for those looking for a live tree. People tend to admit these trees’ provenance under their breath, as if it’s a thing to be ashamed of that they’ve brought home a store-bought tree.
Growing up in the woods of central New York, next to an abandoned tree farm and surrounded by acres of woodland, my family was also loathe to buy a Christmas tree from a store when I was growing up. We only ever cut our own Christmas trees. These tree-cutting expeditions were usually intense, with a long, cold, snowy search for just the right tree and then a few tense minutes as my Dad and Mom worked to get a way-too-big tree inside our house and stood up just right.
Dad: There was a time when we were trying to have live trees. I don’t know if you remember that, but.
Mom: Oh, all the way up through just the last five, six years.
Dad: Yeah. We would actually dig one or, or buy one that was a live tree and try to keep it alive. And then we put it outside after Christmas. We didn’t have too much success with that. I think most of them died.
Lisa: I do remember that now. I forgot about that. yeah, I remember you guys put it outside for the birds to hang out on after Christmas.
Dad: Yeah, that we still do. Well, we used to.
Mom: We used to. On our 24 foot trees. We used to drag them out through the three foot door opening and you know, spray needles everywhere. So we finally got the great idea of limbing it. So we took it limb by limb out the door. It was a really strange looking tree when it was out in the snow bank.
Dad: I think we had, we had some that maybe were 16 feet tall.
Mom: I think more than that because we had them in the room between the library and the living room. And it went right up to the clerestory windows.
Dad: Yeah.
Mom: Closer to 20.
Dad: Yeah. well, there was that one tree that I, that I made up. Remember that one? That wasn’t. Doesn’t seem like that was terribly long ago. I had a cedar pole and I drilled holes in and I put pine and hemlock and spruce boughs in the holes.
Mom: And one year when we felled the tree, it broke the top of it off. So we had to sort of glue and.
Dad: That’s right. You know, we drilled holes.
Mom: Wire it back together.
Dad: We drilled a hole up there and down there and stuck a rod in there.
Lisa: Oh, wow.
Mom: We didn’t want to waste the tree. Worked okay.
Paul joined my family on the tree cutting expedition one year, and flashbacks to that experience shone in his eyes when I told him that I wanted to cut our own tree this year. I think we went over-the-top for Paul, back in the day, trying to give him a true McNamara tree-cutting experience.
Lisa: When I told Paul I wanted to cut down a tree this year since we were going to be here, he kind of was like, I don’t know about that. Because I think he was remembering when we took him out on an expedition.
Dad: We dragged that great big tree. Yeah. One time. I remember the four of us doing it.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. So I think he was thinking that’s what it was going to go like. But like, I just wanted a scraggly little tree. That’s fine. So it was so light you could just carry it out by one hand.
Mom: It’s really cute, though.
Lisa: Now you, now that you have an artificial tree, do you miss the hunt for the perfect tree every year?
Mom: No.
Dad: Well, yeah, I didn’t mind going out and getting a tree, but of course it was pretty difficult to decide on the same tree. Both of us decide on the same tree. I’d say, hey, this one looks good. She’d say, no, no, I don’t like it.
Mom: Well, first you’d have to brush off, like, two feet of snow. And then you’d have to dig down into it to see what the base looked like.
Dad: And so that was always pretty tough. Agreeing on the tree.
Lisa: Definitely. I think that’s pretty universal.
Dad: Yeah.
Long hikes, trudging through deep snow with a big, heavy, sappy tree, snow in the boots, those were always part of the McNamara tree-hunting experience. But getting lost was one thing we never worried about. That’s because one year when my Dad was growing up, he went out to cut a tree with his Dad and older brother John and they got very, very lost, and that’s an experience that you learn from.
My Dad wrote this story down 30 years ago. When we chatted on Zoom, I had just found it again and I kind of sprung it on him, so we took a minute to refresh our memories of the story.
Dad: I’m just looking at it right now. It looks pretty detailed. I was wondering how, it looks like I put some thought into it, huh?
Lisa: So what I was curious about is, like, how old were you when this happened? Or do you remember about.
Dad: Yeah, I was. I was wondering about that. It was probably 13 or 14, I’m guessing. You know, we used to. We used to, I was trying to get you back here now. Oh there you are. We used to tromp around in the woods back there. We had probably. I think we had 49 acres. But, that was really rural. I mean, still. It’s still rural. It’s not. Hasn’t changed much, except they paved the road. But, there’s big blocks of forest between the few roads, and so you can really get lost back in there. And we. We’d tromp around back in there a little bit, but didn’t go very far from the house. So I really didn’t know the woods very well.
Dad: I had seen a tree there up in back of the house. And I. I told dad, this would make a nice Christmas tree. So let’s. Let’s go get it. So we grabbed the saw and we went up looking for the tree, and we never found it.
Here’s the first story, written by my Dad.
“It was so dark we couldn’t see the ground where we stood, so each step was an adventure, wandering through the middle of a hemlock swamp.”
Dad: Wow. I started right off with, like, “it was a dark and stormy night” sentence, didn’t I?
“The hemlock tree grows in dense thickets in the wilds of rural Vienna, where conditions are ideal. Flat bottomland near meandering prune juice streams is the trees’ preferred homeland. After generations of domination of tree after hemlock tree growing up from the canopy in a relentless stretch for the light, the crowns interlock branches and needles with the other members of the colony and catch almost every photon of sun before it can reach the moist ground below. The lower branches being useless in the absence of light, die but remain rigid and tangled to poke and tear at anything that stumbles past. The most successful individuals manage to reach above the canopy and enjoy a glorious spurt of growth until the wind, now having something to grab hold of, levers the tree to the ground, pulling its shallow roots from the soggy soil, leaving a water filled hole and a wall of latticed sticks.
“It was cold, the ground was discontinuously covered with snow and the holes were skinned with ice. But not enough ice to hold up even a young kid. We broke through the icy traps constantly, as we pushed and slogged our way toward a red light in the distance. I reached out my foot, tentatively probing for the ground, when the patch I groped for exploded in a flurry of snow and crashing branches. My heart pounded, adrenaline pumped through my veins until Dad reassured me and himself, that it was just a deer we had disturbed from its nighttime bed.”
Dad: Oh yeah, the deer. I remember the deer.
“We stopped to regain our bearings. Dad, John, and I had left the house around 4:00 in the afternoon to get our Christmas tree. We had 48 acres of land covered with trees, so we were sure that we could find a perfect specimen. In fact, I had recently been looking at several of them just inside the woods behind the flag pole. We grabbed a saw and went up there to get one before supper.
“We found a nice tree just a hundred feet from the edge of the field, but we passed it up for another beauty that we could see through the trees a hundred feet further back. When we got close to that one it looked all right but we knew we could do better. Another nice specimen was displayed against the black backdrop of the deepening woods to our left. We circled it and decided after some deliberation that it would do, especially since the short winter day was coming to a peach colored end. We dragged our rusty hand saw through it with some difficulty and ended the forest phase of its life.
“We grabbed hold of the trunk and towed the find triumphantly toward the house…but which way was the house? We all had differing opinions on that topic. After some debate we trudged off through the underbrush.”
Mom: So how did you not find your way back? Wasn’t there snow on the ground?
Dad: Like, you know, could we follow our tracks back?
Mom: Yeah.
Dad: Probably. Maybe there wasn’t quite enough for that.
Lisa: He said it was discontinuously covered with snow.
Dad: Yeah.
Mom: Discontinuous?
Lisa: Discontinuously. I googled it. I had to google it. I was like, what is discontinuously? Patchy. It’s patchy.
“We dragged the prize for a long distance, certainly farther than we had come from the field, then with darkness falling and the sheepish realization that we were lost descending upon us, we abandoned the needled burden and turned our attention to survival.”
Dad: OK, I remember that.
Mom: Abandoned the needled burden? Turned our attention to survival? Did you bring water and matches with you?
Dad: No. We probably weren’t even that well-dressed either.
Mom: You didn’t even have a flashlight?
Dad: No.
Lisa: They probably thought, oh, we’ll just run up there and do this real quick and be done in like 10 minutes. Right?
Dad: Yeah, it was.
Mom: Yeah. But this time, if you started at four, by five, it’s dark.
“We reasoned that if we walked in a straight line we would eventually come to a road. Concentrating on an absolutely axial direction we tripped and forced our way across the patchy snow fields and through the arboreal obstacles into the gathering gloom. Before long our spirits lifted, we saw tracks in the snow, signs of human presence, three sets of tracks, one adult, two kids…our tracks of course. We had been traveling in circles. We were hopelessly lost now and it was deep woods dark.
“Meanwhile, back at the house, supper was cooked and cold and Mom was worried. She knew we weren’t still out there by choice so she called Uncle Don. Don called out the fire department and they mustered a search party for the lost trio. A troop of Camden’s finest quickly fanned out to comb the woods for us.
“While the darkness was our enemy in one sense, it was our salvation in another. We spotted the familiar radar towers through the trees over on Babcock Road. The red beacon was going to be our guidance system out of this mess. We were blindly feeling our way along, struggling to keep sight of the feeble red glow when we spooked the deer, or when the deer spooked us. Regaining our courage, we pressed on toward the towers, certain that we would intersect the road soon.
“A strange and foreign sound brought us all to a sudden stop. Was it a voice? We listened breathlessly, then it came again. Someone was yelling, and horns were blowing. We answered back, “over here, we’re over here!” Calling back and forth, we were finally joined with our rescuers. They led us to Maple Flats Road where there was an assembly of flashing red lights and familiar faces trying to maintain a professional attitude about the gravity of the situation.
“We were delivered safely home, a little scratched and quite cold, but after a hot cup of tea and a wrap in a blanket, we were fine. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the poor tree. It still lies forlornly in a heap somewhere deep in the Peck Street wilderness to this day.”
My Dad went on to talk about how rough life was for their Christmas trees, even once they were safely back in their home.
[Once we procured a beautiful Christmas tree,] “we were then ready to adorn it with a mantle of decorations. The sparkling treasures were kept in a big mess in the closet, along with the trusty stand. The stand was a marvel of engineering and craftsmanship, sturdy, and designed for stability and rigidity with an economy of materials. Cost: $2.99.
“Decorating the tree was a family affair, with 6 kids of various ages and two adults crowded around the tree which was stuffed in a corner of the room, the outcome was predictably chaotic. Several delicate glass bulbs were crushed and strands of light bulbs temperamentally glowed and went out. Finally the crowning touch was applied, the entire tree was draped with icicles so scarcely a trace of green remained. Dad meticulously placed them a few at a time, hanging over the branches equally and untwisted, while we kids flung them by handsfull up toward the top and watched them drift down on the limbs like silver stringy snow. Finally it was done and we all stood back to admire our work of art. That’s when one of us would trip over the cord, yank it out of the socket, and pull the tree forward, just a fraction out of balance is all it took to upset the fine geometry of the trusty stand, and the tree came gracefully floating to the floor, icicles streaming in the tailwind. It struck with a tinkle and a crunch and the compression of the impact blew icicles all over the room, while we stood, mouths agape, helpless.
“We re-erected the tree, spirits only slightly dampened, readjusted the remaining ornaments, swept up the glass, got the lights all working again, and picked up most of the icicles. The next day, while playing tapeball, one of us made a diving catch on a sharp line drive and crashed into the tree sending bulbs, ornaments and icicles flying in every direction.
“The day after that the dog got in the house and tore all over in frenzied excitement at spending a few seconds in the warm and on one of his laps around the house being chased by three shouting kids, he ran through the tree and spun it to the floor.
“By Christmas the tree had been on the floor many times and the decoration scheme bore no resemblance to the original arrangement. Our supply of delicate ornaments was reduced to a precious few and the spare bulb store was severely depleted. We found icicles in our beds, our food, the refrigerator, and everywhere else in the house until July.
“In later years we took to wiring the tree to the walls and we discovered an ingenious invention, plastic ornaments. But the icicles were still a crucial element in our decorating scheme and we still stood by that amazing $2.99 stand.” -Bob McNamara
Mom: How many times it fell on the floor!
Dad: Oh, yeah, it always fell on the floor.
Lisa: What is tape ball?
Dad: Oh, well, it was just a. Improvisation. Improvisation for playing baseball inside the house. We’d just take a wad of masking tape, wad it all up, and use that for the ball.
Lisa: That sounds annoying to the parents.
Dad: My mother must have been pretty tolerant, huh?
Lisa: Seems like. So do you remember when you guys were lost? Do you remember, like, what your Dad said or any. Or what John said or anything like that? Was he kind of freaked out or did he stay calm?
Dad: Oh, no, he stayed. He stayed calm and he wasn’t. He wasn’t really scared. But.
Mom: Your father, or John?
Dad: He was embarrassed, but, my father, of course he was embarrassed. When we came out, we had to be rescued by the rescue squad. But, you know, us kids were scared, probably.
Lisa: Oh, I bet. And so we never, like, we would go out and we would go venture a ways, but we would never get lost. Like, I don’t remember ever getting lost or even being worried we were going to get lost. It never even. That never crossed my mind. It’s more just like how hard it was to get through the snow. But did, I bet that left an impression on you? Where you were made. You made sure you wouldn’t get lost when we went out with you.
Dad: I don’t know. We got. We got lost, quite often, actually.
Lisa: I don’t remember it.
Dad: No, I mean, when we were kids.
Lisa: Oh. Oh. Oh, gotcha.
Mom: The only time we got, not really lost but off the trail, were numerous times in the Adirondacks. You learned not to follow your father. You’d wait, he’d go up a quarter of a mile, come back down. No, no, that’s not the way.
Dad: Oh, that was Macomb. Climbing Macomb that one time.
Mom: Yeah. Probably other ones too, but.
Dad: When I’m leading bushwhack hikes, and we get lost, or I. I don’t say I’m lost, I just say I don’t know exactly where I am right now. And then I tell them, you know, I’ll stop and get my compass out and I’ll tell them all, I don’t get my compass out until we’re lost.
Back here in Colorado, families have been cutting their own Christmas trees in the national forest and BLM lands for generations. Besides making (good or bad) memories to last a lifetime, cutting trees also improves forest health. According to the National Forest Service, “The permit system helps thin densely populated stands of small-diameter trees. Local forest health experts identify areas that benefit from thinning trees [and these trees] tend to be the perfect size for Christmas trees. Removing these trees in designated areas helps other trees grow larger and can open areas that provide forage for wildlife.”
This year when we went out into the woods in search of our own little tree, I promised I would take it easy on Paul and not get us lost. I wasn’t worried about finding the perfect tree, because I specifically wanted a patchy, scraggly little tree – not that you have much choice with natural trees! I wanted a little tree in honor of a story that my Grandpa Paul, my mom’s dad, wrote about my first Christmas tree. Here’s that story, written December 20th, 1981, when I was just a few months old.
“Today, on the way home from your log cabin, Grandma Paul mentioned the small, frail Christmas tree outside your door. Grandma said that your Daddy and Mommy probably had a good reason for picking this particular tree.
“I told Grandma that I knew why they picked that tree, because I know how your Dad and Mom feel about trees. Your Dad and Mom went out to get the most beautiful and tall Christmas tree, just for you, because it was to be your first Christmas. Well they walked for miles, and they saw many beautiful trees, but they couldn’t make up their minds on which one to take home. And in the center of all the trees was this frail looking tree. They were about to pass it by, when they heard this little tree say, “Oh please won’t you take me home, because I am so lonely out here in the cold. All my brother and sister trees are gone, and I am sure they made many children happy. They were all big and strong and beautiful.”
“Then your Daddy said, “How come all the other trees are so big, and you are so small?”
“The little tree said, “I would have been big and strong too, but I sheltered so many birds in my loving branches, and deer would eat the top branches off of me, because I am a special tree.”
“Then your Mom said, “I don’t know, I wanted something bigger for our little girl’s first Christmas.”
“At that remark, the little tree began to cry, and said, “All my life I have been praying for someone to take me home. All the people come by and look at me, and walk on, and some say cruel things. Then I would see the more beautiful trees taken home, and I knew that they were trimmed with balls, and tinsel, and lights, and they would make many children happy. And my heart would break.”
“Well your Dad and Mom didn’t know what to do, and they started to walk away, like all the other people, and leave the little tree. They walked a short distance, and then stopped and looked at each other. For they knew what was in each others’ heart. So they came back to the little tree.
“Seeing your Mom and Dad coming back, the little tree glowed like the sun, and said, “Please take me home to your little girl Lisa, and we will all have a beautiful Christmas.”
“Now your Mom and Dad wondered how this little tree knew the name of their daughter, who is only 3 1/2 months old. So they knew that this was truly a very special tree, for a very special little girl. And so they brought it home, and set it up, and trimmed it with balls, and lights, and candy canes, and everything nice.
“And the next time that Grandma and Grandpa Paul saw the little tree, it was crying with joy, and we could feel the love that this adorable little tree was sending out to everyone who saw it.
“And Lisa dear, I hope you will always remember the story of this special little tree, and thank your Mom and Dad for bringing it home. Have a very Merry Christmas, and I pray that you will grow up to be something special, just like your first Christmas tree.
“With all our love, Grandma and Grandpa Paul”
Quick aside from this sweet tale: it cracks me up that you could interpret this wish as my Grandpa basically saying he wants me to be scraggly, frail, and giving of myself to the point it hurts me when I grow up. I know that’s not what he meant, but darn, if that isn’t actually how I kind of turned out (laughs)…
Anyway, back to the story. I’ve always wondered how closely it might have tracked to the truth. My parents dug out a photo of me with my first Christmas tree and sent it to me before our Zoom call.
Dad: So, I don’t remember that tree, but, it doesn’t look that bad in the picture.
Lisa: It doesn’t look that bad.
Mom: Well, it was a hemlock.
Dad: Yeah.
Lisa: Oh. Tree snobs.
Mom: That, or a pine.
Dad: Yeah, I don’t think we were rebelling against buying a tree. We just figured that why buy a tree when we live here in the woods and, you know, there’s trees all around us. But of course, hemlocks, or pines don’t make. Neither one makes a good tree because the limbs are so, you know, floppy that the ornaments just drag them right down.
Lisa: When I read them, it’s like, well, how much of this was really real? Like, especially Grandpa Paul’s. You know, the tree doesn’t look that bad. And how much of that was. Was real or what? I mean, do you remember him writing that at all?
Mom: I do remember getting it. Yeah. But, zero percent, as far as real.
Dad: Except that it was a hemlock tree. Did he say that?
Mom: No, no. But they saw the tree, and I think he just took pity on you and wanted to write something about it.
Dad: Yeah, it inspired him. Yeah. That was pretty creative, actually. I, That. That really is kind of surprising.
Mom: Yeah.
Dad: You wouldn’t, didn’t know him to be a creative writer.
Mom: Or a writer of anything, really.
Dad: I guess he had it in him when he got inspired.
Lisa: So did you cut the tree just from our land, then?
Mom: Yes. Yeah, just in the upper field. You know, we were always going to clear it off so that you’d have a place to play up there. And, we just walked around some and found this one and thought, good enough.
Dad: Well, you. You remember more about it than I do.
Mom: Yeah. And it fit in the space. That was the main thing.
My Mom said after the Zoom ended, “I was sorry to have to tell you that the story was completely made up. I think he just wanted to write you something so you would always have something from him.”
I’m not the least bit upset about that. I don’t think we’d still be talking about that tree, or reminiscing on other old memories, if this story had never been written. And what I can thank my parents for is saving the story for me over the years until I understood the value of it.
I treasure stories, especially those stories I have in the handwriting of those who told them. Recipes written or marked up by the cook’s own hand. Notes on the back of old photos. Treasure your stories, both invented and real.
My wish for your this season is that you take the time to write your stories down and share them with your friends and family.
I can’t wait to share more stories with you next year, continuing to explore the tales, history, and creative side of this unique place we call home. If you have a story you’d like to share, you can reach me at lisa(at)postcardsfrompalisade.com or message the Postcards From Palisade account on Facebook or Instagram.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year. Here’s to a new year full of stories in 2026.
Mom: You want to hear a funny thing? Last year, Bob bought a wreath for me from John Kennedy’s wife. It was real pretty, live and everything. And I hung it in the bathroom. You probably remember it over the tub. Anyway, I think it was July. I happened to be walking through the bathroom and it caught my eye. July. It was still hanging there. And not one balsam needle had fallen. But, you know, and I thought, well, I got to get it down. And then I got distracted. Well, then a few days go by and I started smelling this really weird smell. And I thought, my God, you know, we need to clean the bathroom. Smell like cat piss, you know. So I finally got the, the wreath down and that’s what it was. She must have sprayed it with something?
Dad: Cat piss?
Mom: To keep the needles on. When I brought it out, out into the outside, that’s when I smelled it. And then after that, the smell went away. So I don’t know what she sprayed on it, but I don’t.
Dad: I’ll have to ask her sometime.
Mom: Seven months and it still didn’t drop a needle. So it was good.
The music in this episode is O Christmas Tree by Julius H. from Pixabay.
Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.