Oh Tamarack, Oh Tamarack, How Empty Are Your Branches
Did you hear the one about the Californians who moved to Washington and cut down their first wild Christmas tree? Jennifer Pemberton has the punchline in this story about Christmas in the Evergreen State.
Now, the trees in that forest didn't really look like the Christmas trees bought from a grocery store parking lot. They were full of birds nests and parasitic mosses and my mom noticed how the branches weren't very symmetrical. There were places where the trunk showed through. Eventually, though, we found ourselves a fine enough specimen, fuller than the rest with feathery needles and gently upturned branches, enough for all our handmade ornaments.