The Dad Who Stole Christmas Trees

It was December 1970 something. Dad and I were cruising the back country roads in his '66 Dodge Coronet, in search of the perfect Christmas tree. There weren't many houses back then just a lot of cow pastures and woods. Every now and then we would stop, and dad would gaze across the landscape then shake his head and keep driving. 

Finally, we came upon a large cow pasture surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Dad pulled the Dodge over into the ditch and pointed toward the middle of the field. "That's the one," he said, "the perfect Christmas tree." "But dad, there's a no trespassing sign," I said. By now he was standing outside the car with axe in hand and said, "yes, that sign is meant for everyone else, not us." 

In lightning like manner, dad made his way through the fence and was in full sprint toward the tree with my short legs trying to keep up. We reached the tree and dad (who very rarely smiled) had a huge grin on his face as he swung his axe slicing through that tree like it was butter. You would have thought he was a seasoned Lumberjack the way he fell that Cedar. The tree hit the ground with a thud, and he passed off the axe to me. "Let's go boy." He grabbed the tree by the trunk and began dragging it through the cow pasture back toward the car. A group of red Herefords searching for green grass on the frigid winter ground were watching the whole crime take place. I kept listening for approaching cars or a police siren screaming up the road, but we made it back to the car without incident and dad threw our Christmas tree over, climbed through the fence and shoved it into the trunk as far as it would go. A few wraps of baling twine to hold the trunk lid down and we were back in the Dodge headed toward home. 

We sat in silence on the way back. Dad must have known I had questions about what we had just done. He finally spoke up and said, "I was just helping them out, they probably needed that tree cut down anyway." I felt much better knowing we had actually performed a good deed that day. We got home, unloaded the tree and my mother and sisters were jumping up and down with excitement ready to decorate it.  We had a great Christmas that year and it all started with a stolen Christmas tree.