Oregon Greenery

I walk up to Trader Joe's bundled in my down coat and bracing myself against the cold.  Suddenly my eye roams across a neatly constructed tower of greenery piled high in wooden crates labeled "OREGON."  As a cold Chicago wind blows the scent of Pacific NW evergreens up my nose a message is sent.  It travels through Cranial Nerve I (olfactory) to deep inside my brain where my amygdala and hippocampus are in cohorts with my nervous system.  Instantly tears well up in my eyes and warm salty water begins pouring down my cold winter cheeks.  I am changed from a housewife thinking about peanut butter filled pretzels and cheese sticks to a crazy lady crying in the parking lot.  "Where did that come from," I wonder to myself smearing mascara and salty tears on my gloves.

The holidays do weird things to us.  They bring spontaneous joy and can also dredge out those aches that we thought we had so skillfully buried.   Why do I stand there crying?  Because I miss friends and family?  Because of the transience of our culture? Because I feel sad for those evergreens that were ripped out of Oregon soil, crated, stamped, and shipped to the Midwest?  Because I have an overactive amygdala or olfactory glands?

This past Saturday we bought our Christmas tree.  Over the past few years we've had some adventures buying Christmas trees.  Our first year in Oregon Jason lost his keys in a whitewater river South of Portland, and I had to drive down to Molalla to pick him up.  The gift of the day was a 10+ foot Christmas tree which we bought on the side of the road from a farmer with no teeth for about $30 (see the story here).  Last year we got lost in the Oregon woods trying to find a 'cut your own' farm.  This year we decided to keep it simple and turn to our local North Shore nursery for all the adventure we would need.  With Oregon prices dancing in our heads we set out to buy locally...

Our loss of innocence was swift.... $225 for a North Carolina Frasier Fir

$40 for a tree Eleanor's height...

And so with children crying because Mommy and Daddy are too cheap to spend that kind of money on a Christmas tree, we loaded everyone back up into the car.
"What should we do?," I asked Jason laughing, "that was almost comical."
"Home Depot," he replied.

The Smile of Victory

$40 for a Noble Fir half the size of the Christmas trees we've bought the last few years.  From guess where?  Oregon.