For most of K’s life, her family had an artificial Christmas tree. Christmas tree farms were nonexistent in Poland, and if one wanted a tree, one had to go to the forest oneself and cut it — after fulfilling the requisite paperwork for cutting a tree down. (Yes, it seems to me too that Poland has bureaucracy in place for everything.)
The resulting tree was humble at best. The thick, almost-bushy fir trees of the States would have likely been an impossible dream. Instead, they were sparsely branched, humble trees.
This afternoon, when K came home with the Christmas tree, she proudly proclaimed that she’d bought a “polska choinka.” With its relatively broadly spaced branches, it looked about as much like a Polish Christmas tree as one is likely to find in the States.
“And it was only $20!” she added with a smile. “I saved us $20 and got us a Polish tree.”
It seemed only right, then, to leave the decoration to those who had Polish blood — or at least that excuse seemed logical at the time.
For years Mom picked out a balsa tree – the same as this one or appears the same. We didn’t like the regular cedar tree – this was our tree of choice. The ornaments seem to “stand out” better on this type of tree. Only in the past three years have we opted for an artificial tree. From what I can see of yours it’s beautiful.