When I was a kid, my mom insisted on a live tree at Christmas. Not a tree that was once alive and had been cut, either. Our trees all had a root ball wrapped up in burlap. After Christmas, we planted Robert the blue spruce, Julie the white pine, Douglas (the Douglas fir), and several others in the front yard of our Washington, D.C. home. Our parents divorced and our family moved out decades ago, but three trees are still there. They’re now taller than the house.
When Andy and I moved into our house, we got a 5-foot tall Monterrey pine in a pot as our first tree. After Christmas, we planted the tree in our backyard. The second year, we got another Monterrey pine Christmas tree and planted it in the empty parkway next to our driveway.
We had a few years without trees while Baby D was a toddler, and then while we were traveling for the holidays. Once we stayed home for Christmas, though, Baby D demanded a tree. We had no more space to plant trees, so we got cut noble firs. They were beautiful and smelled lovely, but I hated killing a tree for the holidays.
I consoled myself with the fact that our first two Christmas trees grew very fast—and very tall. Those pines provided homes for many birds and shade in the hot SoCal summers. When our asshole cop neighbor attempted a McMansion, I was grateful that I could look at evergreen branches instead of the Chino Hills tract house he built within 5 feet of the property line.
Baby D grew up climbing our backyard tree and loved it.
Andy, on the other hand, grew to hate the tree. He had turned a good chunk of our backyard into his vegetable garden. Within a decade, the Monterrey pine was “stealing all the sunlight!” Even though we had the branches thinned, Andy sulked when his garden did poorly and talked about selling his little greenhouse, “because I can’t grow anything with that damned tree!”
I told my husband to get a grip and wait until Baby D was older. Once Baby D became a teen, we had one last Christmas party where Dalton and his friends climbed all over the tree. And then, as much as it hurt, I hired professional tree trimmers to remove it as Andy’s Christmas present.
I’m not sure which was worse: Dalton calling me “tree murderer” for a month or listening to asshole cop neighbor crow about how great it was that the tree was gone.
At least the other Monterrey pine was still a huge, beautiful tree.
Until the city cut it down, along with all the other trees around our house.
They eventually replaced those seven trees with two small magnolia trees and one Brisbane box tree. I watered and fertilized those trees diligently. The magnolias are still alive. The Brisbane box? Dead. And despite my complaints to the city, the dead tree has been sitting there for a year. (Probably because the city is out of money due to the 1 dollar out of every 4 in revenue going into the pension fund for our corrupt, racist, antisemitic police department.)
My evil plan was to get another living Monterrey pine for our Christmas tree and plant it on the parkway in front of our sidewalk (where the dead tree still sits). If we planted it at 4 AM on New Year’s Day, our tree-hating cop neighbor would be too busy sleeping off the usual holiday bender to notice. He’d probably think the city planted it.
And since he parks at least one of his six cars under it on most days, I looked forward to listening to him complain about the pine needles and sap landing on his precious vehicles.
Yes, I am that petty.
Unfortunately, Orchard Supply Hardware, which supplied us with our first two Monterrey pines, no longer existed. I searched all over and couldn’t find a single one in southern California. The best I could do were Monterrey pine seedlings.
But I found something else: “The Living Christmas Company.” This company brings you a live, potted pine tree in early December. You water it, decorate it, and celebrate with it. After Christmas, the company collects the tree. When the trees become too big to rent out at Christmas, The Living Christmas Company donates them to local communities or to be planted in the wild through the Urban Reforestation Project.
And one of the trees they offer? A Monterrey pine. While renting a live tree costs about $100 more than buying a cut noble fir, you don’t have to worry about transporting the tree home or dealing with the Christmas tree stand.
Best of all? You aren’t killing a tree. Instead, you’re part of growing a tree.
Our Monterrey pine arrived on Sunday. I’m calling him Milton.
