It’s the Southern version of a northern storybook adventure of Christmas tree cutting in a snowy wood. On this warm Thanksgiving afternoon, I led three young cousins into the woods. We all had sharp tools in hand. It was an adventure, but I hoped to build a memory and teach a lesson in ecology. What could possibly go wrong?
The pines are thin. The woods shrink to scraggly, orange-leaved sassafras shrubs, then to a treeless glade the size of a basketball court. Underfoot, a carpet of sea-foam green reindeer moss crunched—way out in the middle, our quarry, two contorted mayhaw trees. Our goal was to cut a few of their gnarly, thorny branches to use for table-top Christmas gumdrop trees.
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