Stolen Christmas Trees… Thoughts on Holiday Giving

A Stolen Christmas Tree

From the book,  Wind in the Pines, by Curt Iles   copyright 2004 Creekbank St0ries

“I know I tagged a tree in this area.”  Those are the words of my neighbor, Mitzi Foreman, as she walks through our Christmas tree farm on a blustery Sunday afternoon. Together we search through where she tagged her tree last week but cannot find it.

“Well, maybe your tag blew off or worse—maybe someone pulled it off,” I said.

“No, I tied in on securely.”

The problem is that all of the other nearby good-sized trees are taken. However, my dad and I have learned to be prepared for situations like this—we have several extra trees tagged for such an occurrence as this.

I walk Mitzi over to a beautiful Leyland Cypress in the southeast corner of our field, away from the highway. She loves it and I quickly saw it down before she can change her mind.

Later that afternoon, Daddy joins me and together we look for the missing tree. He points to an open spot, “Look at that.”

It’s the rough-cut stump of a tree. It’s evident it was not cut with the level cut of our bucksaw, but rather the jagged cut of a machete or ax.

We now know what happened to the Foreman tree—someone stole it.

This both mystifies and frustrates me. Who in the world would steal a Christmas tree? I just can’t quite picture a family sitting there on Christmas morning, opening presents, singing “Silent Night” around a stolen Christmas tree.

However, people will steal just about anything. In the gift shop at the Christian Camp where I work, we have an ongoing minor problem with shoplifting. Ironically, the most stolen items are the W.W.J. D. bracelets. As you probably know, this stands for “What Would Jesus Do?”

Well, I know this much—Jesus wouldn’t tell you to steal a bracelet—or for that matter, a Christmas tree.

A few days after cutting several trees for customers, I take my boots off at our front door. Hanging from the Christmas wreath is a scribbled note, “I cut a tree today.” Attached to the note, held there by a clothespin, is a twenty-dollar bill.

Pocketing that, I kneel to lift our doormat. Under it is another price tag and twenty dollars. Written on the price tag is ‘Wishing you a very a Merry Christmas.”

Yearly, Daddy puts up a sign telling how we operate our tree business. I love his handwritten sign, posted at the end of our road:  “If we aren’t home, you can still get your tree. The saw is on the front porch. You can leave your tag, your name, and money by the front door. Now go do your thing.”

I especially love his benediction. “Now go do your thing.”

Unbelievably, this system has worked well. We’ve found that when you put trust in people, they usually come through in an honest way.

In the week after the stolen Foreman tree, we notice another stump. The thieves have evidently returned, or someone else has sunk to their low level.

I tell my three teenage sons, “We’re going to catch the thieves if and when they return at night.

The next night about 10:30, my middle son Clint and I see the headlights of two vehicles leaving our driveway. We spring into action, running to my truck, taking off in hot pursuit.

We are dressed for battle—I have on my pajamas and Clint in his boxers and a T-shirt. Speeding down the highway, we catch the escaping thieves before they’ve gone a mile.

At the stop sign where Dry Creek’s only two highways intersect comes our moment of truth. As my headlights illuminate the rear of both vehicles, I tell Clint, “We’ve got ‘em red-handed now.”

There the culprits are—my mother in her van, and my dad in his truck. They’d left one of their vehicles at the Christmas tree farm going to a basketball game. The headlights we saw were when they returned for the extra vehicle.

Clint and I both burst out laughing as we turn the truck around. Arriving back home, my wife DeDe is waiting at the door. After sheepishly telling our story, she asks, “Well, what would you boys have done if you’d caught up with the real thieves?”

We look at each other in our nightclothes, and I shrugged. “I guess I’d have taken off one of my house shoes and whipped them with it.”

The best parts of a tree farm are the children. The excitement of warmly dressed preschoolers running through the trees laughing and singing is enough to put anyone in the Christmas spirit. The fun of letting a five-year-old boy hold the other end of the saw as he “helps” me cut down a tree. As the tree falls he loudly shouts, “Timmbbbeeer.” He’ll remember for the rest of his life how he “cut down that tree” during a Christmas season so many years ago.

One of my favorite experiences, illustrating how special a tree is to a young child, occurred about five years ago. A preschool class from our local school came to shop for a classroom tree. Several of the parents came to help their child also select a tree for home.

After we’d chosen and cut four or five trees, the preschoolers loaded back on the bus. I put the trees in the back of my truck and followed the bus to school. About half way down my driveway, the bus came to an abrupt stop.

Teacher Dianne Brown exited the bus and came to me. “Curt, one of the little boys is crying and shouting, ‘I want my tree. That man’s taking my tree. I want my tree right now!’”

It took careful explanation to convince him we were bringing his tree to school.

Yes, stolen Christmas trees could make you cynical, but the joyful faces of children

cutting a tree outweighs the frustration of any theft.   

The occasional person who takes advantage of us is greatly outnumbered by the folks who are as honest as the day is long. Our honor system works well because of this: Most people are good down in their hearts. In life, we must decide whether people are either rascals, or if they are basically honest. There are plenty of examples of each end of this spectrum.

I recall other community signs of what I call “trustful hearts” in our community:  A turnip green patch along the highway with a crude lettered sign inviting people to pick all of the greens they need and leave their money in the mailbox.

Another special long-time example of trust in our community is found at Farmer’s Dairy. An empty butter dish serves as the bank for people who come for a gallon of fresh thick milk. This honor system has been in use for years and Mr. Matt Farmer told me it has worked well.

It’s true—in life, we find exactly what we’re looking for. Our attitude and outlook determines how we perceive the world around us. We can see every person as a potential Christmas tree thief, or we can see him or her as the person who’ll honestly cut their own tree and leave the money under the doormat. It’s a choice, and the choice is ours to make.

We can either say “Bah humbug” or “Merry Christmas.”

Personally, I like the sound of the latter much better.

Merry Christmas.