I worried it wouldn’t be the same this year. No girls along, for the first time in decades. And, more to the point, no Snickers Gap. The little cut-your-own place discovered in the early aughts and now a juggernaut of traffic jams and parking woes.

So instead, it was the tree lot on the corner. Ah, but what a lot and what a corner. The latter an old crossroads with a picturesque white church on a hill. And by going after dark, there was magic at work: piped-in carols, icicle lights in the trees, happy volunteers slapping their mittened hands together to stay warm. 

We found a tree within a few minutes, an aromatic Douglas fir — probably the earliest Christmas tree we’ve ever purchased — and got it home and into a bucket, where it now sits drinking happily. 

Like so much else this year, it’s closer to home, stripped down … but memorable just the same.