We had a Christmas tree all picked out in August. A perfect little white pine conveniently located on the incline of the road bank on the old farm. There would be no trudging through snow or thicket this year, I thought. No need to resort to the Boy Scout tree sale down at the gas station in Hancock. None of the contortions that are required to bungee cord a prickly spruce into the trunk of my Honda Civic.

Of all this I was certain until a few weeks ago, when a tree trimming service, the hire of the electric company, cut our tree down.

I’d seen the trucks trolling the roads for dead limbs and over-hanging branches, but never thought our little tree would be considered a threat. But it was just gone. A now you see it, now you don’t kind of thing. In fact, you would have never known it had even been there—except for the tell-tale pile of savory smelling wood chips.

I started scanning the roads for a tree again. My daughter scrutinized the windbreaks and hedges of our neighbors and proposed we cut one of their flawlessly sculpted evergreens in the dead of night. “They’re hoarding them,” she would shout, when we drove by a line of shapely shrubs.

This is how things stood this past Sunday afternoon, when Lily and I decided to take action. In our hunter orange hats and winter boots we set out. Equipped with the sharp-toothed, Japanese Zubat saw and invigorated with the Christmas spirit. We traipsed our old farm until we found another perfect little Christmas tree.

I am partial to hemlock Christmas trees—we always cut one from our woods when I was a kid. I like their graceful branches and open spaces. We found a hemlock down in the woods we thought was the one until we cut it down and then despaired of its wispy top.

Other trees were too big. Another was too wide. One hemlock on the bank in back of our house looked good, until we realized that if it was cut improperly it could tumble down the hill right into Route 97. What were we thinking?

We finally decided on a white pine we found on the lower farm. Lily did all the cutting (and a fair amount of brandishing the curvy, Aladdin-style saw). Our tree is not a traditional triangle shape, but more bowl-like with slender branches aloft like the candles of a menorah.

The tree is now decorated and ensconced in our living room. Its branches are elegant, twinkling with bells and light. It is a perfect tree. I say this every year, I know.

Best wishes to all for the holidays and in the new year, 2015.