Some Traditions Are Measured in Christmas Trees | The Story Behind Blue Ridge Spruce
Some traditions are measured in years. Ours is measured in Christmas trees.
For as long as I can remember, Christmas has carried the fragrance of a freshly cut evergreen. At my grandparents' house, the whole extended family would gather beneath one roof, and my grandmother's tree claimed a glorious portion of her living room. It was enormous, wonderfully impractical, and utterly perfect. I still think of it whenever I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Years later, while we were living in Georgia, my husband and I began a tradition of our own. The day after Thanksgiving, we would head out as a family to find a spruce, choose it together, cut it down, and bring it home in the back of his truck. We have carried that ritual with us to Virginia, along with the photograph we take before heading home: our daughter perched on the edge of the truck bed, a freshly cut evergreen spilling out behind her. Each year the tree is different, and each year she sits a little taller. What began as a simple picture has become a tender way of watching childhood pass, one Christmas at a time.
My grandmother's enthusiasm for a grand Christmas tree seems to have found its way into our home, too. One year, our evergreen towered so high that my husband stood on a ladder trying to tame its unruly top. The photograph still makes me laugh. Somewhere between Grandma's crowded living room and that tree reaching toward our ceiling, I realized that some traditions are inherited without ever being formally passed down.
After the COVID pandemic, when I taught English to children in China, I shared photographs of our tree and the farms where we found it. My students were fascinated. Some were more familiar with artificial or metallic Christmas trees, and the sight of a family walking among living evergreens, choosing one to cut and carry home, filled them with wonder. Seeing our tradition through their eyes reminded me that the ordinary rituals of home can be extraordinary to someone else.
Perhaps that is the quiet beauty of Christmas traditions. We rarely recognize their meaning while we are living them. We are too busy shaking needles from our sleeves, untangling lights, and wondering whether the tree will fit through the doorway. Only later do we understand that these were the moments we would wish to revisit.
Blue Ridge Spruce carries those memories for me: my grandmother's crowded living room, a truck loaded with greenery in Georgia, the mountains we now call home in Virginia, and a daughter growing taller beside her father's Christmas tree. It is the bright, familiar fragrance of evergreen branches and the feeling of bringing Christmas home.
And as I look back at those photographs, I find myself wishing that, just for a moment, time might stand as still as the mountains.
Explore Blue Ridge Spruce, the candle inspired by this family tradition.