‘Twas one day near Christmas, or thereabout,

When the family and I just had to get out.

So, we took to the woods, our family of three,

In hopes of trimming a fir, a live tree.

I was the one who suggested this trek.

The boy said, “I’ll go.” The wife, “What the heck.”

With them in their fleece, and I a wool cap,

We left the house before I took a nap.

The farther we went snowshoeing the trail,

The more we forgot about school, jobs and e-mail.

The sun shone bright on the new-fallen snow,

And soon we had traveled to where we would go.

A tree had appeared, it looked like the one,

As it glistened with snow in the afternoon sun.

That’s where we stopped to pull stuff from our packs,

That we had hauled out there strapped on our backs.

Out came the suet bags for the birds.

We hung them on branches, we said but few words.

Balls made of popcorn, popcorn threaded with string,

Made the stout, little tree a beautiful thing.

There was more in the packs, paper chains red and green.

Those we wrapped around too, to finish the scene.

The things we had brought, we put on, that was all.

The tree soon looked better than those at the mall.

We laughed and we joked, and yes, we had fun

While we admired the tree and the work we had done.

Then, my son slyly said, “I’ve brought more from home.”

As he pulled from his pack the garden-path gnome.

There was one place to put it and that was on top.

We were laughing so hard we just couldn’t stop.

The way he told it, at home Santa guarded the yard,

So he didn’t bring it. My son, what a card.

The wife said the gnome on the tree was quite cute.

My son, doubled over, thought it a hoot.

The tree was all finished, and I wondered aloud,

“What am I going to do with this crowd?”

We took some pictures of all of us three.

Some shots of us, the gnome and the tree.

Then we turned to leave, the sun setting low,

The trees casting shadows across the white snow.

The trail looked different as we left with our packs,

We stopped to look at some animal tracks.

Some prints of a weasel, a fox and deer

Appeared in the snow, they were really quite clear.

We followed a moose for a roughly a mile,

‘Til it turned by a stream, after a while.

We were nearer to home then, closer to chores,

But we’d made it fun, taking Christmas outdoors.

Approaching the house, the boy practically ran.

The wife and I trudging as slow as we can.

Closer still I had one final thought,

Always be happy with all that you’ve got.

We hope you all get something you like.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good hike.

Brad Viles is an avid hiker who lives in Ellsworth.