Welcome Winter Snack Tree of Peace

As mentioned and documented in my last posting, we cut down a tree in our woods the other day. We brought it inside and it warmed and filled our still-bare walls in our partly-unfurnished living room. The strangeness of the tradition in which we go out into wintertime and kill a tree and bring it into the house as a way of celebrating renewal and winter make me think a lot about David Sedaris' story "Six to Eight Black Men" in which he laments the bizareness of Dutch holiday traditions. (By the way, this is so funny and worth listening to that I spent the better part of an hour tracking it down online. There are some bizarre versions on You Tube, but you might be better downloading this episode of "This American Life" to avoid odd video montages.)

Anyway, embracing the strangeness of cutting down a tree and bringing it into your home, we decided that the tree should be a "Welcome Winter" tree, since that seemed to be the real purpose of dragging this pine tree through our house and giving it a month of post-mortem bliss. Besides, we were slightly embarrassed about having to admit to putting up a Christmas Tree on November 17th.

So it was known as the Welcome Winter Tree for almost a whole day. But then we decided to decorate. The branches of the tree are spare and supple, and we decided that popcorn icicles would be the best way to go. We set about adorning our tree with freshly-popped popcorn strung onto 12-inch piece of thread. The effect was very pretty and simple; it is an old fashioned looking tree. However, it was within minutes that we realized our oversight: Buddy loves popcorn and could in no way resist the temptation of a whole tree laden with swaying strings of dangling popcorn. We watched in amazement as the dog circled the tree, sniffing heartily, while occasionally standing on his hind legs and trying to steal a snack. We soon realized that we had created a very wonderful, phenomenal thing in the life of our dog: a Welcome Winter Snack Tree.

Our friends the Gieblers came by a few nights later and were amused and delighted by our story of the evolving tree name. David informed us that we had a White Pine and after they left we looked up White Pines in our naturalist guide. I read out loud to Rhonda about the history of the White Pine, and its history in the logging and lumber industry in the North Woods. The book then went on to explain the importance of White Pine in the Iroquois Nation, explaining that the Iroquoi refer to it as the Tree of Peace. I looked at Rhonda and said, you know what this means don't you? " She smiled and said, "yeah, we now have a Welcome Winter Snack Tree of Peace."