Jennifer Shaw

On the first Wednesday of December, I cut down my own Christmas tree.

We live on a Christmas tree farm in northeastern Vermont, so choosing and hauling our own trees back to the house is a wonderful and relatively easy privilege. In the last couple of years, I’ve put up my own little Yuletide arbor in our farmhouse dining room, where I trim it with Nutcracker-themed ornaments and all kinds of sparkly feminine baubles. It’s become my own little tradition, one that’s separate from decorating our larger family tree in the living room with my husband and daughter.  

This year, we’d done all our holiday decorating before we left for Thanksgiving in Newport, except for getting my mini tree. No biggie, I thought. We’ll just get that little guy and put him up the weekend we’re back. Unfortunately, along with some new clothes and other fun stuff, we carried home our first seasonal illness, and my husband hadn’t felt well for days. No fever, just a nasty cough, low energy, and a lack of appetite, but he certainly didn’t feel up to cutting down and carrying in another fir tree.

I was feeling the pressure—less than a month until Christmas, and I wanted to enjoy all my decorations for as long as possible, including my little tree. Impatience and frustration were squeezing out any sympathy for my poor husband. (Yes, I realize how spoiled I sound.)

It occurred to me, though, while driving home from school drop-off, marveling at the crystalline majesty of a sunny, post-snowstorm morning, that I should just cut down my tree myself.

It couldn’t be that difficult, right?

Even if I didn’t have the strength to saw all the way through the trunk, trying was better than sitting inside irritable and helpless about it. I’d done enough of that lately about other things, and I was sick of feeling that way.

So, I resolved to have one more cup of coffee, then don my snow pants, sturdiest gloves, and Bean boots, and venture out with the handsaw.  

I’ve always been petite, and I’ve tended to think of myself as rather delicate and helpless. I’m not sure where that attitude came from, but I suspect it’s something I absorbed growing up as an early Millennial at the very edge of the Deep South, where I danced on the drill team and joined a sorority. In these more socially conservative groups, there lingered the idea that ladies ought never to do the manual labor a male will happily do for them. It’s the classic princess attitude, or the idea that you ought to be a “show pony” as opposed to a “work horse,” as my stylist once said. So, I usually defaulted to letting my boyfriends and, later, even my husband do most of the literal heavy lifting.  

But I wasn’t going to act helpless that morning, dammit. I wanted my Christmas tree, and I would make that happen.

I found the saw in the garage and trudged into the lines of Fraser firs, already invigorated by the sunlight on my face and the endorphins activated by the outdoor exertion, and I was toasty despite the 19 degrees F. I picked a younger tree not far from the house, brushing off most of the snow first to ensure it had a nice shape. Then I kneeled, grasped the trunk in my left hand, and began sawing with my right.

It felt like the saw’s teeth hardly made a slice, and my shoulder ached right away. I’m almost forty-four and I’ve been sedentary this year, so I’m not in the best shape. I stopped for a minute, leaned my palms into my thighs, and watched my own apparent weakness materialize in the steam from my breath.

Crap, I thought. I probably couldn’t do this. I’d have to wait. Or, I’d have to march back in, announce to my husband I failed, and see how gallant he was feeling. It was likely he’d drag on his own coat and snowpants between virtual meetings and come finish the job for me. He’s a sweet, solicitous soul like that.

I hated the idea.

Try again, I thought. A little higher up. Don’t give up so easily.

I started sawing once more, not quite so close to the ground. I realized I needed two hands, and I let go of the trunk and used both—my entire body, really—to saw away, allowing my gaze to wander, just concentrating on the rhythm of the movement and keeping my core muscles strong. Doing my best not to strain my middle-aged back.

I just kept sawing and breathing. Panting, more like it, but I kept going. It wasn’t pretty or dainty.   

It took a while but suddenly, that little tree tumbled over. It startled me because, not feeling much through my gloves, I didn’t think I was making any progress.

But wouldn’t you know it, down it went.  

I hadn’t felt like such a badass since giving birth to my child ten years ago. Well, maybe not quite that fierce, but close.  

I lifted my handsome little tree, now entirely mine, onto my daughter’s snow tube and pulled him back toward the house.

“See what I did?” I asked Susie, Jeanie, Mimi, and Doris, my hens. The tree and tube just scared them, and they ran under their coop to hide.

But I was still proud of myself. I propped the little Fraser up against our ancient front door, where the sun could melt the remaining snow before I brought it inside to decorate. Prior to that morning, I would have said the tree-trimming was the best part, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Years ago, when I had a side-gig as a Pure Barre instructor, we had a saying: “You are stronger than you think.”

I used to consider that phrase little more than branding. A trite, obligatory statement we instructors were trained to weave into our cues in every class, especially when we could see our clients’ trembles and sweat, that point when many of them came out of their positions to rest because they just couldn’t take the shake and burn. The phrase was meant to keep them going a little longer.

Those painful segments were, after all, when their bodies were actually changing. When their strength was truly developing, though in the moment it felt like weakness and failure. That burn was the breakdown of their muscles, what made our clients ultimately leaner and stronger, and the next class a little easier, once they were rested and their muscles repaired.

As the years go on, in many episodes both major and minor, like my little tree-cutting adventure, I’ve recognized the truth of those words. We are all, in fact, stronger than we believe, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and when we persevere through our doubts and discomforts, we often achieve the most growth.

“Of course you cut down your own tree,” my husband said when, puffy with pride, I reported what I’d done. He sounded almost blasé about it, and for a minute I was miffed, but then I realized I should be flattered.

“You’re a tough, capable person, Jen,” he added. “I wouldn’t have married you otherwise.”

As this year draws to a close and we face yet another one—probably just as chaotic and uncertain as this one, if not more so—that is my December wish for us all. I hope we all remember our own strength. I hope we all persevere through those difficult moments, big and small, with greater confidence.

I want all of us to take more chances, even little ones. I want us all to make even the little things happen for ourselves because there is growth in those moments too. They are, in truth, rehearsals in grit and determination, and we need them to fortify ourselves for when those bigger, more daunting trials come along, as they inevitably will.

I write this as a metaphor of course, but I hope we can all go out and cut down our own Christmas trees.

Happy holidays! I wish you the best, and I’ll see you in the new year.   

XOXO,

Jenn