I'm one of those counter-culture curmudgeons who still insists on buying (not going to the woods and chopping down) a Christmas tree. I don't get a live one - there's already a forest in my back yard. I haven't gone in for the artificial ones, although some of my best aging hippie friends have done so. I suspect they are in it for the art part.
But I have a passion for colorful Christmas tree ornaments, the twinkle of fairy lights, and the sharp tang of evergreen in the air and so, in what I regard as true pagan fashion, I sacrifice one tree a year to the gods of the renewal of light.
The tree I am sharing with you today, however, was sacrificed more than once to the god of lightning. It stands somewhere in Montana, where my friend John and I stopped to pay our respects a few years back. Damn betcha we gave her a hug!
