Our Night Tree
Last year, when deciding what to do for the winter holidays, I suggested heading north; somewhere cold and snowy. The kids were on board immediately. “Yes! Can we get a cabin in the woods?” “Can it have a fireplace?” I was already a step ahead.
I had this vision from a children’s book we used to read each winter, The Night Tree by Eve Bunting. In it, a family drives to the woods on Christmas Eve and decorates a tree with ornaments made of food for animals: oranges studded with cloves, pinecones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed, and garlands of popcorn and cranberries. Once decorated, they drink hot chocolate and sing carols. That night, the boy dreams of wild animals feeding on their offerings. It was one of our favorite books, and the idea had always stuck with me. This was our chance to bring it to life.
We booked a little cabin in the woods just north of Quebec City for Christmas week. Into our car we packed birdseed, suet, cookie cutters, fruit, cranberries, un-popped popcorn, and yards of jute. Our cabin perched on a hillside above a frozen lake, blanketed in half a foot of fresh snow. It was perfect—complete with a big stack of wood and an iconic wood stove.
The first days were spent exploring the area by walking across the frozen lake in search of the perfect tree. We found one on the far shore and packed down the snow around it to make access easier. You think you’ve decorated a tree, until you try it standing in deep snow, without a ladder or even a chair. Creativity required.
Back at the cabin, we lit the stove and cranked up the holiday music. We popped enough popcorn to feed us and to string for garlands, and everyone set to work alternating kernels and cranberries. I melted suet on the stovetop, mixed it with birdseed, and pressed it into holiday shapes—stockings, sleighs, snowmen—then cooled them in the fridge to harden. While they set, I baked sugar cookies for us. Eventually the kids drifted from the garland project to cookie decorating, so Inga and I spent the evening finishing the strings ourselves.
That night I also perfected a new drink that pairs suspiciously well with warm sugar cookies: Fill an Old-Fashioned glass with fresh snow. Pour two ounces of Canadian whisky over the top, drizzle in a teaspoon of maple syrup, stir, and top with more snow. Simple and sublime.
On Christmas Eve, we packed our birdseed ornaments, garlands, a thermos of hot chocolate, and some battery-powered lights into a sled and dragged it across the lake to our tree. We worked quickly, humming carols, laughing at our snowbound clumsiness, and strung the garlands and ornaments on as many branches as we could reach. By the end, our tree shimmered with popcorn and cranberries, suet cookies, fruit, and soft white lights. It was part Christmas tree, part wildlife buffet. As we set out a blanket at the base of the tree and poured hot chocolate, a coyote howled in the distance. I smiled and hoped it would find our little tree before long.
We sat quietly, sipping cocoa and marveling at what we had made. The lights twinkled beneath a cloudless sky thick with stars, the white popcorn bright against the red cranberries. We sang a few carols and let our voices drift across the lake and bounce off the surrounding hills. Eventually, when our mugs were empty and the cold crept in, we packed the blanket and thermos and made our way back across the lake. The tree behind us glowed like a tiny beacon in the dark (in case you’re wondering, we returned to the tree the day that we left for home and removed the lights).
That night, like in Bunting’s story, I lay in bed imagining the animals that might be visiting our tree—perhaps a red squirrel nibbling suet, the coyote we heard drawn by cranberries, or come morning, a flock of Evening Grosbeaks descending to feast on birdseed. That image stayed with me; wild creatures sustained, however briefly, by our offering.
This celebration of winter felt different; more connected to nature, and to each other. And I realized the place wasn’t the important part. This is something we could do right at home, here in Cape May. In fact, that’s the plan. Right here in our backyard, in fact, is a great opportunity. A tradition just north of the Cape May canal takes place each year with locals decorating trees in the dunes at David Douglass Park adjacent to the Cape May Lewes Ferry. So, if you find yourself exploring Cape May this winter, and I hope you do, keep an eye out. You may stumble on a tree adorned with edible ornaments and draped in garlands. It might just be our Night Tree… and if you feel inspired, maybe it could be yours too.
