Confessions of a Tree-nage Drama Queen (Marnie)

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

True to the spirit of the holidays, the Christmas music station on Nory’s car radio was in the middle of an insurance commercial. In the break between “Frosty the Snowman” and “The Beatles’ Top Christmas Hits,” she and Marnie had fallen into a discussion about politics.

“I think Bernie’s policies are great,” Nory continued over the Liberty Mutual jingle. “I mean, I’m on Tumblr. But with him and Trump, I dunno, I’m a little worried that we’re getting so polarized. This is the first year I can vote, but – ooh, I love this one!

“Christmas time is here again…”

Nory accelerated into a turn on the road and their small Subaru crested the snowy, forested hill in a burst of song. Propped in one of the cup holders, Marnie’s phone hosted directions to the Landon Christmas tree farm. Marnie had an apartment, Nory had a car, and both were overflowing with Christmas spirit. Convenient plastic trees be damned, they were going to chop down a real tree, saws, sap and all. Nory couldn't think of a better use for her eighteenth birthday present, the used Subaru that she had ecstatically dubbed Juanita.

[Marnie Sullivan]

Like during most conversations about politics, which seemed to be getting more common each month, Marnie had spent much of the car ride listening and absorbing what she could. This wasn't much of a problem when it was with Nory, who could typically be trusted to a) carry on at length and detail, and b) not jump down her throat when Marnie did share an opinion from time to time. It was polarization, like Nory was saying; now that Facebook had turned into a minefield, for example, Marnie understood why politics had never been a popular dinner topic growing up. At least she'd heard of Bernie Sanders before joining Tumblr, a benefit of being born and raised in Vermont.

"Ain't been around since you know when," Marnie joined in, bopping along in Juanita's passenger seat. It wasn't Rudolph or Frosty, but this close to Christmas most songs got at least a little humming action.

"In eight hundred feet, turn left, and your destination will be on your left," Marnie's phone announced in a helpful deadpan.

"Oh good, I was afraid we'd miss the tree farm in all these trees," Marnie said, retrieving her phone and turning off the map to save the battery. Joking aside, though, after she'd stuffed her phone in her coat pocket Marnie leaned forward in her seat, hands on the dash, to watch out the windshield for a sign indicating the farm's driveway. Each of the pines they drove past were huge and bushy, much too big for her living room, but as they drove past each one was being draped with tinsel and plastic icicles in her head. They were going to find the perfect tree here, she was sure of it.

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

Nory had not heard of Bernie Sanders before joining Tumblr. Not that it mattered much, since Tumblr and the trending topics on Facebook were Nory's primary source of news. Adam, who had a current events RSS reader on his tablet, often told her that there was better news and a lot less CAPS LOCK to be found on the internet. Nory muttered that real news had too many stories about war and not enough cat pictures and Vines.

"Ha ha! Yeah, I don't know what we'd do if that happened," Nory laughed. "Maybe if I sat on your shoulders, I could saw down a branch from one of these big ones." She took Juanita in a tidy left turn at the Landon Christmas Tree Farm sign, and after a few more rises the farm opened up in front of them.

A large dirt parking lot was half-full of cars, and next to that people wandered in and out of a several barns. Square, snowy fields of trees marched up the hill in front of them. Next to the barns, families warmed their hands around wood burning barrels hissing in the snow. Next to those sat a rack of saws and measuring poles.

Nory barely set the car in park before jumping out, dragging scarves behind her. "Wow! Where do you think we get started?"

[Marnie Sullivan]

Once they parked and Juanita's rumbling engine quieted, Marnie swung her door open and hopped from the passenger seat. The air here, already cold enough to sting the nostils, was pungent with the crisp, minty smell of the trees surrounding them. A little of that was coming home with them, Marnie thought happily.

"Maybe toward the back," she answered as she assessed the landscape. The trees looked a bit more sparse here near the parking lot; they probably were the first to go as the easiest to get to. "Not too far, you know, but I bet if we go past where everybody gets up we'll find some really good ones."

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

"Yeah," Nory agreed, eyes sparkling with lust as she wrapped scarves around her head and pulled on her gloves. "How tall is your ceiling again?"

The snow was thick and packed hard in a hay-sprinkled path from the parking lot to the main barn. People trundled back and forth with Christmas trees held between them, and others stomped their feet by the fire barrels and sipped cider from Styrofoam cups while they waited.

Unsure of how to get started, Nory wandered over towards the barn. Just as she found someone who didn't have a tree in their arms, the rumble of a tractor came from up the road. "Huh?" She turned around, and she saw a tractor pulling a trailer lined with bales of hay rolling slowly down the hill. The squares of hay made slightly soggy, makeshift benches, and large red ribbons hung from the outside. "It's a hay ride!" she exclaimed to Marnie. "Wow, I don't think I've been on one of those since the fair back home! Like, ten years ago."

"That'll take you up to the mature tree fields," one of the hands interjected helpfully. "It's free, just climb on in."

[Marnie Sullivan]

How tall was her ceiling? "Maybe eight, nine feet," Marnie answered, her words rising in cloudy puffs in front of her. "It'll fit a nice, big one."

Marnie's boots skidded a bit as she trotted after Nory. Most of the traction the snow offered had been stomped away by the waves of tree seekers before them. Only the hay scattered around the path caught her soles and stopped her from biting it in the snow.

"Can we take ciders on?" Marnie asked, grinning from one muffed ear to the other. That'd be just perfect, something to keep their hands warm on the ride out.

"It's hay," the hand shrugged, "I don't think anyone'll care if you spill."

Excellent - oh, but once they'd gotten their tree they'd need all hands on deck to carry it, and there probably weren't trash bins out there.

"What do you want to do?" Marnie asked, turning to Nory and leaving it to her. "D'you want to grab some or just head out?"

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

Given her choice, Nory would have come to the tree farm dressed like a reindeer wearing flashing lights. She already had a Santa hat on. Nory's imagination was a brightly-colored, festive place, and she all but demanded reality to match her ideals. "Let's get some!" she grinned, and bounded over to the window where the Styrofoam cups sat steaming.

Some of the liquid slopped onto her gloves as she climbed into the back of the hay ride, and in about two minutes the fingers had frozen solid. "That's okay!" she chirped, stuffing the frosty glove into her coat pocket and clutching the cup with one warm and one bare hand. "I'll be able to hold the saw better." Still, she gulped down the rest of her cider as the tractor started its rumbling ascent up the hill.

"So how does your family do tree decorating?" Nory asked as they proceeded past short, snowy pines. "Do you get a real tree, or always use one color of ornaments or anything?"

[Marnie Sullivan]

Marnie gripped her own cider with two hands as well; with mittens on, the styrofoam cups were just a smidge too big to hold securely with only one. Ahead of them, the horses trotting along were clearly in no hurry, but the ride was bumpy enough all the same.

"Real, tree," Marnie answered, as she tried to steady herself against the incline of the trailer. "But all of our ornaments are in storage right now." She'd only remembered this moments after making plans with Nory to get a tree in the first place. Since then she'd raided the Goodwill for ornaments and trimmings, resulting in a cheap but eclectic mix. (Instead of a star or angel, the tree topper was the Staypuft Marshmallow Man.)

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

Nory's face fell. "All of them? But you picked some up at Goodwill, right?" As she said it, she remembered seeing the gigantic bag in Marnie's entryway. Her grin returned.

The hay ride dropped them off after a short trip at the top of a snowy hill. Orderly fields of Christmas trees, decked fetchingly with snow, spread out in front of them until they stopped at the pine wall of the forest edge. Nory made a beeline for the equipment.

"They have measuring poles!" she exclaimed, and hefted a twelve-foot length of PVC pipe onto her shoulder. It had been marked at foot increments, and sprang about on Nory's shoulder. "And saws!" An orange-handled hacksaw gained, Nory turned to Marnie and narrowly avoided knocking over a child with the back end of her PVC pipe swishing around behind her. "Lead on!"

[Marnie Sullivan]

Out here, off the flattened tracks left by cars and wagons and heavy foot traffic, the snow crunched deliciously under Marnie's boots. Most of the trees still had dustings of snow over their boughs. Marnie reached out to the nearest one, gently looped a finger over the branch, pulled, and released; the branch sprang back, snow falling from it with a satisfying whump.

"Hm... this way!" What was different about these trees over here? Nothing, as far as she could tell, but that didn't stop Marnie from confidently tromp-tromping deeper into the forest.

"What kind of tree d'you think I could get Felix to crawl around in?" she asked while they meandered from tree to tree. Scooter had always like to play in the Christmas trees, but he was up in Maine with Marnie's parents. And while the Venn diagram of "trees native to Vermont" and "trees chameleons are used to" was pretty much two circles, Marnie doubted the little lizard would be harmed by a few minutes in a pine tree.

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

"Aw!" Nory gave a sigh of delight at the idea of Marnie's small pet adding a splash of his favorite color to her Christmas tree. "That would be adorable! Probably one with soft needles." She rubbed the branch of a nearby tree thoughtfully between her icy fingers. "I know some of them are pricklier than others, and different trees smell different."

Nory prodded and kicked and stuck her head into snow-covered trees to try and figure out if the truck was straight, and followed Marnie's confident tromping around the rows of trees. Finally, she gasped.

"Marnie, I think this tree is speaking to me," she said solemnly, taking a step back from it. "It's...beautiful." She stared in quiet awe for a moment, then whipped the saw off her shoulder. "What do you think?"

[Marnie Sullivan]

The tree that had snagged Nory's attention was one that Marnie had just passed by, distracted with peering closely at the needles of the tree across the path. Turning curiously, she saw it. It stood tall and straight; its full, bushy boughs pressed out in a shape plumper than its neighbors; and the layer of snow powdered over its branches glittered invitingly at them. The Ghost of Christmas Present had clearly reincarnated here in this tree lot.

Interrupting Nory's quiet awe with a few more crunching footsteps, Marnie approached, eying it hungrily.

"Incredible," she agreed. Lifting her mittened hands out, she formed two thick L shapes and framed the tree with them. "It'll look just right with the tree topper I picked out."

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

It truly was a magnificent tree. Like the kind of tree you'd see the December page of a Thomas Kinkade calendar. Nory almost didn't want to cut it down.

Almost.

Nory got down on her hands and knees and wiggled under the tree. "The marshmallow guy? Totally!" She spat some needles and snow out of her mouth and positioned the hacksaw next to the trunk. "Okay, can you hold it steady?"

In spite of all common sense pointing to the contrary, Nory made a clean job of it. She had surprising proficiency with hardware and tools. The tree wasn't heavy, and the two of them could carry it easily between them. After that, it would be back onto the hay tractor and check out at the barn!

[Marnie Sullivan]

"On it!" As Nory burrowed her way past the lower branches, Marnie made to grip it further up. Careful not to squash down its rounded silhouette, she arched her back out, feet planted carefully. Getting a firm grip like this was tricky, especially while the trunk jerked back and forth with Nory's saw.

Soon, though, came the final crrrrrack! before the tree leaned and fell into her waiting arms. The needles stabbed at her face and Marnie was pretty sure the sticky smear on her forehead was sap. But these were minor casualties compared to their spoils.

"We got it!" Marnie crowed.