Publisher's Synopsis
Put on your boots, bring out your sled. Let's fetch our Christmas tree, Dad said. We'll have it trimmed by first owl's light Before the blizzard strikes tonight.
Along with Dad, Mother, and Purr-dy Cat, the children follow a winding path through the snowy wood. They walk past stonewalls and fallen logs. Uphill and downhill they hunt for that special tree as the wind blows the blue out of billowing clouds in a wintry sky.
When the children spot the proud spruce, they know it is the tree for them. Moose tracks circle its trunk. A black-capped chickadee flits from its branches. A snowshoe hare bounds from its shadow to the edge of the glen. Purr-dy Cat sharpens his claws on the tree's soft bark.
Using a bow saw, the little loggers fell the tree. They load their prize onto the sled and head home. The sky darkens, and soon the laughing moon replaces the sun. They follow their own tracks going back, but the path seems different in moonlight. Different, too, are the spicy perfumes of the wood, now mixing with colder air-pungent pine, fir balsam, birch, and muskiness from a foxes' lair.
Late that night, after the children help trim the tree and after they set up the holy creche scene of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, they gaze at their work.
An unexpected surprise brings added reward. It is as if the fragrant incense of the king's gift of that first Christmas is wafting across continents and centuries-
. . . the gift of frankincense, Precious and sweet with scent intense, Like that they breathed there where they stood- Wild perfumes from a winter wood.
