The taking of the tree.

Celebrating a spiritual but joyful act of anticipation and memory.

FOR ME, THE ESSENCE of Christmas isn't presents and carols and cheery greeting cards; it's the taking of a tree. The annual cutting of a Christmas tree is to this refugee of the prairie a primal joy without equal.

Christmas trees, as I remember from my youth, came tied in bundles stacked on asphalt parking lots in towns and cities. Pressed flat from days of travel, they were clones of one another. Only one in a hundred displayed any character, and none had a history, a place, a meaning. There was no perspective about those firs and spruces and pines. They had been cut in some far off forest or plantation by a businessman who knew nothing of me, my family, or our kind of Christmas. Those trees had become unstuck in space, flitting about the country and arriving quite by chance in Arizona, Ohio, or--in my case--South Dakota. It was as if the tree had chosen the buyer and not the other way around.

Then I moved to the forested mountains, and everything about Christmas trees changed. Here in Montana, choosing a tree starts early. When the last of the Thanksgiving turkey has been pared from the bones and hunters' shots no longer ring in the hills, the looking begins.

Snow depth permitting, my wife and I cruise the back roads in search of spruces that might fit comfortably twixt our floor and ceiling. We do not, like some seekers, select and mark ahead of time the specific tree that will fill our home with Christmas those few December days. To know in advance which trunk we'll cut would make a formality of the taking of our tree. But in short order we have marked in our minds the general locations of the choicest blue-spruce stands.

Christmas trees should be taken on a Sunday afternoon. After church and a chicken dinner and while the sun hangs high enough to sparkle brilliantly on snow-covered valley floors. It is on such a day that annually renew our love for the forest by choosing a piece of it to come live with us for one too-brief period. The tininess of the camp saw belies the importance of the occasion as we leave the car and begin our search.

For my wife, who is not a good judge of height, all trees are fair game. Running ahead, she finds a good one almost before the echo of slamming car doors has faded from the woods. I take my time. I understand her well. Soon she is off in search of a better, bigger, fuller specimen, and I know there is plenty of time.

We have a tradition of taking a double-spired spruce for our Christmas tree. Such a tree begins life normally enough, then at a young age loses its terminal bud to the hunger pangs of a deer or other forest denizen. Two new leaders emerge, and in hot competition they shoot skyward in a splendid, twin-topped display of accidental symmetry. It is the discovery of just such an individual that sends my Christmas-spirited wife into fits of ecstasy. "It's not too tall, is it?" she pleads, and I assure her it is not. We shake the snow from the branches and feel the prickly bite of sharp needles. We walk all around and note the fullness of the boughs and the denseness of the foliage. The trunk has just about the right thickness, with enough of a base below its split to fit into the supporting stand.

Backing off a few paces, we admire the squat broadness of the tree, its diameter nearly equaling its height. "It'll almost fill the dining room," I say matter-of-factly, subtly testing her resolve.

"I know," she says with a smile.

"Shall we take this one then?" I ask. She nods.

One does not fell a Christmas tree, or even cut it. Such words are too harsh for the gentleness that should prevail when one takes a tree. Done properly Christmas tree can only be to have been removed.

I wish it were possible to borrow this tree--to take it home, let it brighten our and enrich our lives, then return it to these woods. People do that with baby birds and orphaned fawns, but trees--lacking the mobility of warblers and whitetails--must be permanently removed. It should be a solemn but happy occasion.

The sharp teeth of the saw bite quickly through the layers that nature had so long labored to produce. The tiny rings that identify the tree's recurring cycle of growth and rest mark time in reverse order, and with a few strokes I cut from yesterday back through a decade. In the center, I stop to catch my breath, then with a few more pulls of the saw return through the years to the snow-blanketed forest of today. Slowly, the spruce tips to one side--the fall cushioned by the softness of its boughs--and comes to rest in the snow.

A twinge of remorse passes through my consciousness, but I tell myself that the forest needs thinning and that this tree will not be missed. Those silvicultural facts notwithstanding, it saddens me to have taken an arboreal life. An ill-founded emotion perhaps, but yet I am glad that the taking of this tree does not come too easily to me.

But trees, reflecting the magnificent wisdom that went into their creation, live on. Some as walls of homes, some as the pages of splendid volumes, and some like our double-spited spruce--in Christmas memories.

All this, though, moves fleetingly through my mind, as there's work yet to be done and pride to be felt. Strands of moss, dead needles, and an old bird's nest must be removed from the boughs of our beauty, and when those chores are done, we prop the spruce upright in the snow and again admire our choice.

It's a good thing to be able to take one's own Christmas tree. It's akin to growing your own food or building your own house or making your own clothes. It's the triumph of quiet woods over noisy streets, the smell of spruce resin rather than auto exhaust, and the crunch of snow instead of pavement beneath your feet.

But the taking of a Christmas tree is more spiritual than that. It marks the beginning of another season of birth and renewal. The tree we removed today and now tow behind us as we trudge silently through the fading winter light will help fill our house with Christmas and our hearts with peace. That's no mean accomplishment, even for something as mighty as a tree.

GARY TURBAK writes on outdoorsy, topics like Christmas trees and hone logging from his home in Missoula, Montana.