A Family Man's Search for the Perfect Christmas Tree

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Visit corksickle.com and buy yours today. This is Our American Stories, and we love our listeners' stories. And by the way, send them to ouramericanstories.com, because they are indeed some of our favorites, and they're some of your favorites, too. Jim Johnson is a long-time pastor who lives in Rogers, Minnesota. Pastor Jim's heart-moving story, Everett's Last Christmas Carol, needed a follow-up. Here he is again, Jim Johnson, this time with the Christmas tree story. Hey, have you ever had bad luck with Christmas trees? Me, too. I have conflicts with holiday evergreens.

If I were in a recovery group, and I probably should be, I would say it this way. Hi, I'm Jim, and I have issues with Christmas trees. I mean, I'm a Minnesota guy, a holly jolly father and grandfather, big-time lover of Christmas, a heavy-hitting broker of holiday cheer, and possibly one of the biggest fans of yuletide carols in America. But Christmas trees have generally gotten the best of me.

Here's part of my confession. I once stuffed 10 ponderosa pines into a 15-passenger Dodge van on a warm day in Santa Paula, California, for a day of services in a barn. We drove 40 minutes with those trees sweating bullets and our van chugging home slowly through Ventura and Oxnard and into Camarillo down the 101. It was fully illegal, I'm sure, but I did it for the Christmas trees. Confession number two. I once also procured one of the last two trees remaining in a northern Minnesota grocery store parking lot at dusk on Christmas Eve. There were exactly two trees left in the parking lot, and I purchased the ugliest, paltiest, weakest excuse for a tree, but my biggest misstep with fresh-cut evergreen Christmas trees is what I want to tell you about today. It was something that occurred before all nine of my children and my wife and before God, very likely also before our representation of the heavenly host, and I was forever changed, and I want to admit it publicly before you today. I heard the unmistakable sound of hissing directed at me personally during a festive holiday about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. It all came to a head at a tree farm near Elk River, Minnesota 15 years ago exactly this month. On a below-zero day in December, in sub-zero temps, car exhaust fumes creating a gaseous image of heavenly clouds surrounding all of my children and at least 20 other witnesses along with my Christmas bride Linda, a radical Christian partisan who does not miss a thing standing there and shaking their heads. And this year at the same farm in front of that same Christmas beauty and that the three youngest of the nine children, all of them now teenagers, I finally came to a point of sweet redemption with a quadruple victory, two balsam firs, a pair of mittens, a spendy Christmas wreath, and a cup of hot chocolate, and that's what I want to tell you about today.

But first I'd like to start at the top. I am an ordained Lutheran pastor and pastors, I must say in general, make fairly shaky humans sometimes. They think too much, they worry about everything, they stop living in the moment, stop praying, and they get so overwrought with responsibility they forget how to laugh and ride the waves. As far as I have researched it, and I have researched it well, pastors are almost always completely human, decidedly, painfully, inherently human. And even if they are transformed by the gospel of Jesus and called by God to serve the Lord and to love their neighbors, and though they are surrounded by teams of lovely people, these pastors, priests, and ministers have deep and abiding flaws, even the best of them, especially the best of them, and particularly in the month of December. So when it comes to the holidays, the very people who spend their November's and December's thinking about how to make a perfect Christmas service, how to connect with a world that lays long in sin and error pining like the carol says, how to tell the story of the baby Jesus and the long suffering Mary, the mother of Jesus, treasuring these things in her heart, and the self-sacrificing carpenter Joseph, how is he, a simple carpenter supposed to raise a king, and the wise men from the east bearing gifts they traverse too far, and the excitable a little rough around the edges shepherds, and the heavenly host standing around the shepherds out in their fields with the angels singing glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

But how is that supposed to work when you're a stressed out dad and a low wick pastor? Remember the part of the Christmas carol Silent Night? That is what I'm shooting for. You know, all is calm, all is bright, round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild. And then that sleep in heavenly peace, well you know that's exactly what I want at Christmas, sleeping in heavenly peace. Isn't that what you want? But when it's mid-December and you're at the end of your proverbial rope, worn and wearied by the meetups, concerts, visitations, Advent services, kids programs, gifts exchanges, low budget shopping breakaways, senior care scrambles, and extra gospel preaching preparations. You don't feel like singing oh how beautiful the sky is with the sparkling stars on high, you know that one?

How they glitter, brightly gleaming, how they twinkle, glad some beaming. No, you don't want that. You're saying that's not me right now. You want to skip December 24th through January 1st. You feel like hey let's go to Alta and Snowbird instead. You feel like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh or Ebenezer Scrooge, disguised as a spiritual clergy trying to put on a good face. Because you know when you're down and out and it's COVID season and the government limitations are such that they don't want you to stand by his cradle. They want you to give a little elbow room to the cradle. That the wise men from the east shouldn't be traveling from the Orient land. They should be staying home for a four week pause.

You feel like you're bent and like me going every which way but loose. They should have stayed home because the king thus lays in a lowly manger and we don't want those hard time families at the Nativity Stable to catch the virus. So parents and pastors want to provide something sweet, something good, something from God.

When times are hard and even more when it's bad. So that led me to my Christmas tree crisis number one. We were serving in a church in glacial northern Minnesota near Fosten, population 1800, in the bone chilling hinterlands near Bemidji. When I was in my early 30s a brand new young pastor and we were short of cash. And when sweet Linda and the three little daughters were negotiating for a big time live green Christmas tree cut from the woods.

I talked him into delaying the process until I had a little bit more money. God is my witness I admit this openly I was dumb enough to talk them into delaying the decision of cutting down a tree until the day of the Christmas Eve service. I said hey kids let's do it the way the song puts it you know on the 12 days of Christmas. We'll start celebrating on the first day Christmas Eve and we'll end on January 6 or so. We'll get the full 12 days we'll cut down the tree on December 24th, decorate it after church, hang the garland, open presents, eat the honey hickory ham. And then after we get back from church we'll all unpack the ultimate Christmas Eve experience and we'll have a great time. So with that expectation we jumped in the car, we put the ham on low.

Little Elizabeth and Hannah and Lydia were bouncing with anticipation in the back of the Ford Aerostar minivan. And then and there I learned that my IQ is very low. My discretion is borderline because the U-cut trees were closed already, shuttered at noon. And in the days before smartphones and GPS and easy websites we were stuck big time.

I said hey we can go to the hardware store where the Cub Scouts were selling pre-cut trees yesterday but we drove over there and they were closed too. And when we come back more of Jim Johnson with his Christmas tree story. When we come back more of Jim Johnson's story here on Our American Stories.

Our American Stories. Your free welcome bonus at ChumbaCasino.com and live the Chumba life. Pay attention. You'll be attached at the SIP.

Visit QuarkSickle.com and buy yours today. The tangled web of Hollywood's secret history of sex, money and murder. Subscribe now to Variety Confidential wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with Our American Stories and the story of Jim Johnson. And now let's return to the story of Jim Johnson's Christmas tree. Linda started rolling her eyes. She whispered, are you sure about this? And I was saying, well go to the grocery store.

They're going to be awesome. They have all sorts of trees there. But you guessed it right. When we pulled up to Palubiki's IGA grocery store it also was closed. And there were exactly two trees left.

Two trees suffering from want and famine and malnutrition and neglect. And we had no choice. We bought a Charlie Brown tree and put ten dollars in the cash box in the lonely Coleman cooler in the parking lot. And my oldest daughter, age six, Elizabeth said, Daddy, what happened?

Oh this will be fine, I said. That was my first Christmas tree failure. And at that point all three daughters, Liz, Han and Lydia were saddled with a notion for a lifetime that goes like this.

Our dad really doesn't know what he's talking about. So three years later after that failure came a day of what I thought would be a time of major retribution. We had moved to Minneapolis and we visited the Goldenman Tree Farm 45 minutes away from our house past Elk River across the Mississippi River in the farm fields by Zimmerman. We left on a Thursday afternoon late but again pre-GPS and in the days before Siri. The way was not as clear as I had recalled it and the traffic north on the notorious Minnesota Highway 101 was clogged tighter than my 36 inch waist pants on a 38 inch father.

And we arrived at about five thirty a half hour past closing. Having traversed afar on a Thursday night that meant we could pick up a Swedish saw and cut down a six foot spruce tree in the dark driving the minivan down icy roads of the tree farm by ourselves and put the forty dollars in the honor system cooler by the gate. And there was not a whole lot of romance in the process. We cut down the tree with frozen fingers in the black Minnesota night but there was no hay ride, no hot chocolate, no apple cider, no caramel corn, no families by the fire. Just cut down the tree as fast as you can and get out of there.

Daughter three Lydia said bummer dad. How come we came so late asked little Benny age four. And so for the next few years we gave up we cheated with an artificial tree a symbol of what all that is wrong about American Christmas.

An artificial tree plastic broom like branches on a steel pole painted green silver spikes painted hunter green. And you own one and you bring it out and soon you have to make the admission yes we have Advent apathy here. We don't care. We store pretend arbors in the basement. We are clean tidy people who disdain wood and dangle plastic wires with tiny lights on petroleum products shaped into a verdant cone. But we did that too and I admit it. So finally after a time of proper fatherly repentance, I made a promise to my radiant radical Christmas loving bride and our family now at its apex. Five daughters four boys. I made a vow.

We will go back to the tree farm near Elk River and I will give you the whole show. I was now in my second decade of pastoral service a pastor with experience now. But still utterly and incurably human. And then all the more tired in my over eager service as director of a Christian Bible college. I taught four classes I directed a team of professors and interacted with parents and college kids and churches in a way that could stagger even the best of people persons. Besides that we were living in a fish bowl right on campus. We dwelled in a church house by Medicine Lake in bucolic Plymouth Minnesota and as such we were 24 7 on call and Christmas tree farm cutting experiences demand really a full Saturday of which I had very few in those days.

Saturdays and Sundays were my busiest days especially in December. And I was on the verge of becoming a shell of a man. So we piled into our now classic 15 passenger Dodge van all 11 of us with the last seat pulled out so we could have room to squeeze in a tree. If the kids in the back would be willing to duck a little bit for the 45 minute ride through weekend traffic on the 101 what would be so hard about that. And so as we loaded into the van. I could feel the temperature rising in my head. Those weeks at the Bible college were 80 hour marathons in December end of semester grading a Christmas concert weekend for separate showings 170 college students.

20 student pastors hundred and 20 semester papers to peruse hundred and 70 finals to correct Christmas parties kids gatherings candlelight services Christmas shopping to complete under pressure. My friends with smaller families would tell me you brought this on yourself pal. You wanted to have this big family. And that was true.

But somehow when you're a dad in your mid 40s with a 17 year old daughter and the third bench. As far as she could get away from us and a one year old boy in a baby seat behind the driver's chair. And adventures in Odyssey Christmas episodes blasting out of the Dodge Ram 3500 in mid December.

I was dying of the pressure weary from minimal sleep and praying this Christmas memory would go fast. We arrived with crowds, the throngs of Minnesotans at the Goldman tree farm and a world of sin and sorrow was raining out there. The tires of our 15 passenger van were spinning and pickups were weaving in and out of the lanes of Fraser firs white pines blue spruces balsam firs.

And there in that humid van outside sub degrees below zero temperatures. We could not quite find that tree the exact right tree. So I pushed a little hoping that the nations would soon prove the glories of his righteousness and having a nature sing but it took us so long and the dying young dad and the two poop to party pastor was almost ready to let sin and sorrow grow.

But somehow we cut down the tree. We stuffed it in the back of the van. We drove it up to the shake and bag line. And there I thought for a precious minute.

Let's skip the $2 shaken bag line. I mean it's only a 45 minute ride home and it's freezing out here and long lay the world and sin and error pining impatience is taking over and I could not keep my eyes open I said let's just go and Linda said no, we're going to pay the $2 go shake the tree. Get in line and put that little orange netting around that tree.

That my friends was where I made a big Christmas tree mistake. True natives of the land of the 10,000 Lake State know the value of Minnesota nice can be a misnomer and a smokescreen. Those in the know call it Minnesota nice.

That is, there is a passion cloaked in passive aggressiveness. These are northern women and Norsemen. They're soldiers they chop trees they sail Lake Superior, and they may smile, nod and extend their hand in peace, but cross the line of well defined boundaries. And you're going to find a Viking there, leering with eyes like darts, a frosty smile and a handshake that will squeeze the orange juice right out of you. And you've been listening to Jim Johnson telling his Christmas tree story, Minnesota nice.

And again, we are always looking for your stories, Christmas stories, any kind of stories, send them to OurAmericanStories.com When we come back, more of Jim Johnson's Christmas tree story here on Our American Stories. Your beverages, they go where you go, to the gym, the office, around town. Corksicle, thoughtfully designed drinkware made from high quality sustainable materials. Flat sides for easy grip, padded base for no slipping and triple insulation for best in class temperature retention. You'll be attached at the SIP.

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See dkeng.com slash football for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms, and responsible gaming resources. And we continue with Al American stories and with Jim Johnson and his Christmas tree story. So we parked the Dodge Ram van in the steaming huddle of about 15 cars parked here and there on top of the tree farm. And there were three shaken bag lines and three teams of young men handling fresh cut trees in the cold. And up we came like an army.

I was George Patton. My kids marched up to the shakers and beggars like weary victors with our tree. And I stood with the seven eight foot fur in my hand and teenage Ben and 11 year old Seth handling the trunk end and me really thinking, do we really need the shake in the bag?

I mean, while fields and flocks, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy, is it really necessary to shake your tree and to put it in an orange net? Linda said, yes, it is necessary. My wife, my Mary, my Jeanette, Isabella, we will pay for the shaking and the banking.

We will pay the two dollars. So I looked at her and I shook my head. Beautiful is the mother, beautiful is the child, I thought to myself.

And looking back, the finality of her word, as tired as I was, was beautiful, too. There on the lull in those three lines, I paused and I did not know I was, in fact, the last person in line. I was dying of impatience and could not see it. I knew it was two degrees below zero.

20, 30 Minnesota nice buyers of Christmas trees were standing there waiting, watching. No one was moving. I knew I was tired. My glasses were fogging. Sweat rolled down my forehead. There was a line, but I didn't really see it.

I was too tired to see it. It was a frozen huddle of Minnesotans in the fog of exhaust. And so while these passive Vikings stood holding their trees, I said to my boys, let's go, guys, follow me. Too tired to notice, I marched to the front of the line and handed in my tree.

There was an unusual quiet when I got there. The 20-something tree bagger, long and lean, looked at me, turned, and took a breath. In an instant, he snatched my tree out of my hand. Thank you, sir, he said, with depth and drama for all to hear.

A very merry Christmas to you, sir, a very merry Christmas. At that point, I realized that 30 people were looking at me and thinking, that idiot. I was the buffoon who came too soon, the Christmas stiff who blew past 20 people in line to race to the front of the tree shaker and bagger. My daughter, Elizabeth, bold and direct, said, Dad, you budged. It was visceral.

You could cut my foolishness with a knife. I heard a distinct hissing from several of the frozen moms of Christmas. I was not a pastor, not the father of nine, a lover of Christmas, not a spiritual leader. I was the bozo who barged to the begging station. And since the tree was shaken and netted, there was no turning back.

The silence of judgment is a piercing sound when you're a Minnesotan. And with all those Vikings watching and looking and your nine children gaping and your wife, sweet Linda, the Christmas bride, no longer standing in love, admiration and respect, I was in trouble. It was there when I realized the tree was not shaken. I was shaken and bagged. Why did you do that, Daddy?

asked one of my prophetic children. Why did you budge in front of the line with the Christmas tree? I shook my head and said, let's get out of here and drove home.

It has been 15 years since that tragic day. Linda and I raised the kids in Southern California and living in sun splash. Ventura County, a land of highways and hurry ups, was good for me. It was a place of high taxes and long lines. We enjoyed skyrocketing real estate. We enjoyed the beaches.

We found that time heals almost everything. The concept of nice takes on a different hue in Southern California, where the lines are long and the kids are clustered. And the 101 Ventura Highway clogs and clutters or races like a speedway. In California, the clash of Farsi and Spanish and English and Chinese means you have to learn to watch and wait a little bit more than you do in Minnesota. Southern California gathers in children by the millions from Asia, India, Iran and Latin America.

And there in Ventura County, I made 100 Hispanic friends. I learned to be a good neighbor and I figured out actually how to wait in lines. My son Isaiah was only three at the time of my first Christmas tree failure. Thank you, sir. A very Merry Christmas to you, sir. So this year, my son Isaiah sat in the driver's seat.

I slouched in the passenger seat with my hands folded in our ancient Toyota Sequoia. And I was resolved to renew my Christmas credentials. You see, two years ago, we moved back to Minnesota from California to work with new churches.

I'm now a coach and a friend to young pastors and brand new startup churches, and I'm 59 and slower by several steps. The Christmas tree farm is only 15 miles from our house now. So I was determined to return to the scene of the crime. We came this year on Thanksgiving Day. It was 2 p.m. and I was surprised with a healthy covid crowd meandering among Christmas trees at the farm, coming together at the end for hot cocoa in a place by an outside campfire. This was really fun. There was no snow and no show, just 50 covid Christmas tree customers grabbing a cup of coffee or hot cocoa, some with masks, most with saws, ready to cut down a Christmas tree and get shaked and begged.

We were distanced and cautious, but not necessarily because of the coronavirus 19, but because we're learning to wait our turn. It's Minnesota nice, to be sure, and I was determined to score a victory. I brought my mandate mask and I wore it in the store.

I bought a pair of mittens for Linda. I circled around and scored a Christmas wreath for 35 bucks. And I walked with the kids out to the field and cut down two trees. Actually, they cut down the two trees I watched. We dragged them up the hill where I waited in line in 35 degree weather, no snow, no pushing ahead in line.

I watched the young men shake the tree and beg the tree. I was patient. I was nice. I was awake. I waited my turn. I stood in the back. And when we got home, my three teenagers sliced open the two handsome trees, released them from their orange netting prison and helped set them up.

One downstairs and one on the main floor. You know, in a world of covid scares and political upheaval, mistrust and division, job losses and fears of global strife. I think we can all learn a little bit by cutting down Christmas trees and waiting in line. You ever sing the third verse of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear? It's the verse that says, Yet with the woes of sin and strife, the world has suffered long. Beneath the angels strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong. And man at war with man hears not the love song which they bring. Oh, hush the noise, he meant of strife and hear the angels sing.

Edmund Sears wrote it back in 1849, and I think he has it right in 2020. We live in the woes of sin and strife. We've suffered wrong. With people at war and a country in division and all those car fumes and crowds of passive aggressive and downtrodden people and some too nice to say anything. Like Sears says it, quote, We hear not the love song God brings with the angels. And we don't always hear Jesus either, sir. So hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing. In terms of recovery and in gratitude for all those shakers and beggars in the world this Christmas.

I admit I haven't quite got this ton and bomb thing licked, but I will say it again this way. Hi, I'm Jim. I have problems with Christmas trees, but I'm learning.

The baby Jesus grew up and died on a cross and rose again and is alive, very much alive and real. If the Christmas child can hush the noise and hear the angels sing, then I suppose I can smile and wait in line for five minutes. I'll get my Christmas tree early. I'll grab a cup of cocoa.

I won't make my boys squeeze into a van with 10 trees in a 15 passenger van. And I'll greet everyone who will make eye contact with the words. Thank you, sir. A very Merry Christmas, ma'am.

I won't even cut to the front of the line. I'll buy an exorbitant Christmas wreath and I'll make sure what happened on that holy night 2,000 years ago, to change a man like me little by little, really pays off. How about you? Merry Christmas, sir. And a special thanks to Jim Johnson, who is a long time pastor and lives in Rogers, Minnesota. Again, share your stories with us and our American stories, any kind. We love these listeners stories. Send them to our American stories dot com.

Jim Johnson's Christmas tree story here on our American stories. Your beverages, they go where you go to the gym, the office around town. Cork sickle thoughtfully designed drinkware made from high quality, sustainable materials.

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