SUNNY CAL JOURNAL - Mernie's Christmas Tree Gift

(12/24/2025)

By Bob Weaver The Yule Tree was part of ceremonial life starting in the 16th Century, and later connected with the Christmas celebration and the birth of Christ. The bringing of a tree to one's abode and placing objects on it has evolved over the centuries, including a number of changes in my lifetime, mostly directed toward buying lights and decor from a store. In the 1940s, most of Calhoun families didn't have electricity, with much of the decorations homemade objects, crepe rope and store bought silver icicles used for adornment. Children's creations were brought out year after year and placed on the tree. Sometime in the 1960s, retailers began to push live trees in pots for the holiday tree, a "green" event before its time. My mother, for a few years, was motivated to go with the live tree, its roots in dirt and a burlap sack to be watered, and then taken to the yard for planting. Thirty-nine years after her death, over 55 years since the planting of the tree, there is not a day goes by that I do not think about her. Standing in our front yard at Hur is a giant "Christmas tree," standing about 85 feet tall, a wonder to gaze upon, in many years laden with pine cones. My family views it as Mernie's gift to us those years ago, not only at Christmas, but day after day, year after year.

Hur Herald ®from Sunny Cal The information on these pages, to the extent the law allows, remains the exclusive property of Bob Weaver and Dianne Weaver The Hur Herald. All information may be freely used but must not be sold or used in any type of commercial endeavor, or used on any web site without the express permission of the owners ©Bob and Dianne Weaver, The Hur Herald, 1999, 2000, 2001