O kerstboom

In Christmas on December 14, 2008 at 9:57 pm

Christmas tree displays at the local garden center in Malden, near Nijmegen.

‘O kerstboom’ in Dutch, ‘Oh Christmas tree,’ in English.

These days the Dutch are rushing to the garden centers and backyard growers of evergreen, a time when these trees in all shapes and sizes are cut, sold, bought, dragged, mounted and spruced up.

Buying a real Christmas tree is not only a time honored tradition in Western countries but is also an affair that involves the whole family. Everywhere in Nijmegen this week, I see young couples loading and unloading trees on their cars, whole families picking up Christmas trees from the garden centers, and trees already ´dressed to the nines,´ brightly twinkling behind glass windows.

For the first time in 10 years, there will be no Christmas tree or holiday décor at home. Sjef and I are travelling during the Christmas week to the south of Spain and we both agreed to skip this year´s rite of decorative passage, a year-end task that, at times, ends up in frayed nerves.

Signage for a Christmas tree sale in Nijmegen

But we still drove today to the nearest and busiest garden town centre to catch up with the Christmas rush and secretly enjoy the spectacle of people carefully puzzling over which ball to hang on the tree or what flashy ´bling-bling´ should trim or occupy that favored spot with the mistletoe.

On the way to the garden center, we passed by backyard growers of Christmas trees and, obviously, business remains brisk as we saw people dragging the netted trees, stacking them on cars or shoving them into the baggage compartment.

At the garden center, I was amazed to see how many Christmas trees were displayed en masse, waiting for the queue of diehard Christmas tree aficionados. There is a wide variety of sizes and breeds, some of them Eastern European varieties such as Serbian or Polish spar.

Christmas tree shoppers

I saw children haggle with their parents on the merits or demerits of a tree, and couples debating the peculiar scent or span of a branch. Judging by the frenzy and last-minute rush, Christmas tree selection is apparently no longer a simple affair but requires careful planning and logistics.

I also begin to wonder where all these trees came from, sprouting like mushrooms in the two short weeks before Christmas. I didn´t see them growing in our neighborhood´s backyard. Is there an army of elves somewhere, secretly propagating a forest of Serbian spar, grown and trimmed to reach the exact height just in time for Christmas?

The garden shops or centers are, as usual, also stacked with all sorts of artificial Christmas trees, and the quality and variety are giving the real trees very tough competition. Some looked so real they come complete with pine cones, uneven branches, and variegated leaves. Others are already equipped with the ubiquitous Christmas lights, including the latest LED-blinking garlands that are, by themselves, almost complete light-and-show spectacles.

I promise some friends with reading deficiencies to keep some of my blogs short, so instead of sounding like Scrooge complaining about the excesses of Christmas tree decorations, let me just post here the photos made this weekend showing the general excitement in Nijmegen in this week of ”mass-Christmas-tree-massacre.’