NO! Not a Thorn Tree.

The last of the leaves are gone, the few rusty soldiers who were bravely hanging on, through wind and rain to the twisted mostly bare branches, have finally fallen in autumn's retreat. Winter is officially here in Wisconsin, and it's safe to assume there will be brutally cold weather for the next three months that will be void of much color and fun. This could be why Christmas and the winter holidays can instill such fondness in the hearts and minds of those who hale from parts of the world that experience the season, which covers and clads Mother Nature in snow. It gives us a colorful and exciting reprieve from the bland and boring winter world, if even just for a short time.

The green fir trees, the bright and blinking multicolored lights, and the shiny silver and gold ornaments that adorned the inside and outside of peoples' homes; I loved seeing the cold-dead world being artificially brought back to life. The brilliance of it all stoked excitement within me, just as much as the exchanging of gifts, and for some time, the older I grew the more I appreciated the pomp of it all. However, the festive holiday bug that seemed to have bitten me, must have missed my mother. There would be no traditional decorations festooned about our home, inside or out. Which left my siblings and I mildly dejected and somewhat embarrassed. We understood that out mother's unconventional holiday tradition, had more to do with our economic status, rather than an embracement of some kind of thorny Scrooged Grinch mashup, that had her purposefully subjecting us to what we thought then to be "poor parental" torture. Because what our family lacked in the display of traditional holiday cheer, we made up for in the homemade Christmas Cookie decorating marathon, our mother put us through weeks before the holiday.

The Tree:

It's not that we didn't decorate, or weren't filled with the "holiday spirit". We all loved Christmas, and having a tree to decorate was the focal point of our holiday display. However, it's the type of tree that my mother chose to use, that would both fuel our initial childhood consternation, then later become an endearing tradition. Prior to 1990, we had traditional Christmas trees, it was then in my freshman year of high school, my mother decided to take us off the deep-end. There it was taking up the entire corner of our family room. Bare, no color, matching the pale pallet of the outside winter world that was framed by the windows, this wretched looking twisted excuse for a Christmas Tree was set against. "This thing is ugly, Mom" full of bewilderment, I exclaimed, "A thorn tree?" Undeterred, and proud of her new Christmas custom she said, "We're going to have fun decorating this thing!". The decorations would be another avenue of embarrassment for us kids. Colorful lights? nope we used gum drops pinned to the thorns. Garland? we strung Cheerios & popcorn together. Even our school art projects received a string and were hung from the tree, it didn't matter if they were Christmas themed or not. The Valentines card, with "I love you Mom" scribbled in crayon, yup, it was hanging from the tree. The miniature screwdriver with the amber handle, I made in 8th grade shop class? You bet, it too found a place outside the junk drawer and triumphantly hung from the tree. From the arts and crafts projects to the gumdrops, all of our ornaments, except for the candy canes on the tree, were homemade; and the tree is where the results of the cookie marathon were put on display.

The Cookies:

Where the display of our seasons greetings were unusual, the way we shared our holiday cheer, with family and friends was more traditional. The first two weeks of December were spent by our mother baking hundreds of Christmas themed sugar cookies and gingerbread men, that we would use as gifts from our family to yours. The massive amounts of cookies would occupy just about every flat space available in the house, as they awaited our signature decorations. The decorating of the cookies was more than just applying icing and candy sprinkles. It was a time that we put our extra curricular activities aside, and came together to bond as a family. Over bowls of colorful icing and the mountains of cookies, we used that time to affectionately tease one another, and see who could decorate the most outrageous cookie, and using it as an Easter Egg, for unsuspecting family and friends who would receive it amongst the gift of cookies. Sometimes this resulted in a NSFW batch of cookies. The cookies that didn't make it in the gift trays, would end up as decorations for the infamous thorn tree; which resulted in a tree with mostly edible decorations.

We didn't have a conventionally beautiful tree, if it was aesthetically pleasing at all. We didn't have many gifts under the tree, nor did we exchange many gifts outside with family and friends, because of our working class simple economic means. As a young children and teenagers, this created some embarrassment for my two sisters and me. We didn't fully understand or appreciate what our mother was instilling in us, and utilizing at the time. However, as we grew older and began to learn the reasons our mother decided to use a thorn tree, and give cookies away as gifts every year, it made more sense, and filled us with appreciation and pride. Our mother was an extremely hard working woman, as one of Wisconsin's first female ferriers. She was also a very frugal individual, something we knew well with the thorn tree, and cookies. However, she was also very resourceful when it came to conserving the natural resources and world around us. This is where her idea to use a thorn tree for Christmas was born from. The Buckthorn is an invasive species in Southeastern Wisconsin, so our mother thought it would be best if we'd cut one down every winter and remove it from the environment it was not supposed to be in. Because she never wanted to waste anything, even something ugly and invasive, she decided we'd use one as our Christmas tree every year. For the next 10 years, until all the children were grown, had moved out, and moved on; our family would cut down a Buckthorn Tree, make hundreds of cookies, and celebrate the holidays in a very untraditional manor.

I'm no longer in Wisconsin, and I've called California home for almost 30 years now, but the holiday tradition that was born from my mother's resourcefulness and ingenuity has stuck with me. We still find an unconventional tree or plant to decorate every year, whether that is a cactus or a palm tree; and we still exchange gifts that have a lot of love an meaning behind them, even if we don't spend a lot of money. We look to celebrate each other and our company, rather than showering each other with gifts. Now, we have large family get togethers, where everyone shares food dishes and stories; reminiscent of my younger days sitting around the table filled cookies and laughter. We may not have the thorn tree or decorate the cookies anymore, but we still carryon the traditional of creating a Holiday that is homemade.