-The Arts Fuse
In 2001, writer Brad Kessler and photographer Dona Ann McAdams collaborated on The Woodcutter’s Christmas. Inspired by her photos of discarded Christmas trees, Kessler penned a tender holiday tale of a farmer’s annual trek from Vermont to sell his family’s stock of trees to Manhattanites.
The slender volume has long been out-of-print. However, Galpón Press has released an updated edition with expanded text by Kessler and additional pictures by McAdams. There is so much to love in this book. The poetic prose — illuminated by austere black and white portraits of abandoned trees — is a resonant parable for all ages.
The story centers on a family’s fascination with a man who, every December, unpacks his truck and sets up an open-air bazaar of Christmas trees below their windows in the East Village. One night the reclusive salesman asks for help; he needs someone to watch his wares while he picks up a part to repair his truck. A meal is shared, and he scribbles his address, “Var’s Farm, Dedham’s Notch VT” on a matchbook cover. After that Xmas, he never comes back to that location.
Several years later, while returning from a ski trip in the Green Mountains, the family notices the Dedham’s Notch exit on the highway and decides to make a detour to visit the enigmatic farmer. Sitting by the man’s wood stove, the family learns that he became angry that his beloved trees were so quickly left for curbside trash. Disgusted, he filled his truck with the detritus and returned the trees back to the land, vowing never to return.
The story culminates with an agrarian miracle — the characters sit on the farmer’s porch, listening to the wind and trees as snow falls. It is a Zen moment in a sweetly spiritual yuletide fable that deserves to become a holiday classic.