What’s your idea of the perfect Christmas tree? We were discussing childhood trees in the newspaper office the other day. Linda remembers one of those silver aluminum trees with a rotating colored light shining on it. Bill talked about an artificial green tree.

Growing up in south-central Missouri, I was surrounded by trees. Pine trees were especially prevalent in our area, and there were cedar trees as well. Although we lived in town, there always seemed to be someone willing to let us go out to their pasture to cut a tree for Christmas.

A week or two before Christmas my dad and brothers woul...