For the Love of Christmas

Jamie and I have been known to make impulsive decisions. We are committed to each other and strangely to our vehicles, but not much else. I haven't gone to the same hair stylist or dentist more than twice since I was eighteen and living with my parents. Jamie and I have lived in eight different residences since we were married twelve years ago--nine if you count the hotel we were in for a month when our hot water heater busted and flooded our downtown apartment. Every house we've owned we call a garage sale house. This means we were driving around with no intentions of moving, saw a sign, and said the famous last words, "It couldn't hurt to look." We are typically pantsers (fly by the seat of our pants) and rarely planners. That's how we knew this time was different. Our most recent move was thoughtful. It started with a commitment, and then purposely looking for 15-20 acres of land with visibility and good access to main roads, somewhere we could finally put down roots--both our family's and actual tree roots.

Growing up I remember having a real tree at Christmas. I remember the fresh pine smell filling the house, the clink of my dad's hammer on the metal stand, turning the tree in endless circles while we all voted on which was the best side to face out, getting sap on my hands when shoving the lights as deep in between the branches as my arms would allow. The Christmas memories that stand out over the others are the times we picked out our tree from the rows of perfectly conical evergreens at a nearby choose and cut farm in Indiana. This magical place was as much Christmas to me as the North Pole--all that was missing was Santa and his reindeer. Even then I knew I wanted a Christmas tree farm.

Jamie and I had talked about it before, but it was still just sharing dreams. It was in the same category as let's live in Belize when we retire. All our moves over the years left a longing in our hearts for roots. The longing grew stronger with every move. That's when we decided it was time to get serious about our dream. We looked at several different properties and none of them was just right. It was close to Christmas so we put our farm search on the back burner for the holidays. On our long drive home from North Carolina we started looking at properties on our cell phones. We had purposely not been looking at Williamson County simply because we knew we couldn't afford the amount of land we would need, but we were running out of options. I looked at Jamie while he was driving and said, "It couldn't hurt to look."

We entered our search criteria and there it was. It was in our price range, so of course our first thought was, "What's wrong with it?" The pictures showed cleared pasture land with gentle rolling hills and a small creek, and then we saw the deal breaker. The property bordered Tennessee's Interstate 840, the seventy seven mile partial loop around Nashville. This would deter most, but not a family looking to plant Christmas trees. We had wanted visibility from the road for free advertisement, and our time as urban dwellers in downtown Nashville prepared us for the road noise. It would be a familiar sound machine lulling us to sleep at night. The property was made for us. The exit off 840 is even named Pinewood Road. How perfect for a Christmas tree farm! We bought it. We sold our house, packed up the kids, and moved to the country.

Pinewood Christmas Tree Farm is no longer a dream; it's reality. The 2020 Christmas season for 500 families--maybe one of them is yours--begins next week when we plant our inaugural crop. To all those 500 families in the year 2020: thank you for letting us be such a special part of your holiday. Merry Christmas!