Christmas in Tinsel Tree Village by Viola Shipman

Author:Viola Shipman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2021-07-23T13:38:38+00:00

Four

As soon as Neve passed under the big blue Pure Michigan! sign and crossed the state line, it began to snow.

As if to remind me of my total and complete stupidity, Neve thought.

The more Neve’s SUV rounded the bend and got closer to the lakeshore, the harder it snowed.

Having been born and raised in Michigan, Neve was used to the snow. And driving in the snow—here and in Chicago—had become second nature. It usually started snowing in Michigan around Halloween. As a kid, Neve always marveled at the images of kids in warmer climates she saw on TV trick-or-treating without coats.

You can actually see their costumes, Neve thought.

Neve always had to shed her jacket and hand it to her parents every time she knocked on a new door just so people could see hers. Then, she’d throw it back on to ward off the cold.

“Princesses aren’t supposed to be cold or wear coats!” she’d say to her parents.

Neve remembered the joke people in Michigan and Chicago always told: “What are the two longest seasons around here? Winter and construction.”

Neve’s old SUV was so loaded down with luggage and decor that it actually made it more stable.

But my mood? Neve thought. Not so much.

The snow was falling steadily but lightly, the fluffy kind of snow that blew around in the north wind. Winter in Michigan was like another world, so different from summer, but beautiful in its own majestic way. Neve glanced right and left as she drove. In so many ways, Michigan’s woods resembled Neve’s bottlebrush Christmas-tree collection: deep green pines, white birch, the bright red berries of the winterberry, or Michigan holly, the flame-red and bright yellow twigs of the dogwood against the newly fallen snow.

There is such beauty and such life in the dead of winter, Neve thought. I’m caught between two worlds, too: The past and the present, Michigan and Chicago, before and after.

That’s when she saw it.

Neve slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. Before she knew it, she was running through a field and into the woods. Snow seeped into her boots and socks, but she didn’t slow until she was standing in front of a Fraser fir.

“You’re perfect,” Neve gasped, her breath coming in heaving puffs. “Perfect.”

She reached out and touched the tree, gingerly and carefully, as if it was human.

The fir was dark green and its needles had a silvery underside. The branches and stems stood straight and upright, proudly, like a toy soldier. This tree was perfectly shaped.

Neve inhaled.

“You smell like Christmas,” she whispered. “You look like...”

Neve didn’t finish her sentence, but her mind did.

The last tree Jackson and I decorated.

The Fraser fir had been Neve’s family’s go-to Christmas tree growing up, and she was happily surprised to discover it was Jackson’s as well, albeit for more practical reasons.

“It’s a very resilient tree, and its needle retention is superb,” Jackson—ever the tree-farm owner—had said.

“Like you ever vacuum,” Neve had joked.

Married to a man who owned a Christmas-tree farm, Neve learned that everyone in the world had a favorite tree.

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