This Christmas, The Ticker brings readers a guest essay written by Chris Mundy.

Like most kids growing up, I loved Christmas — believing in something magical, the unknown; a man who, if you were good, rewarded you with a gift. A time to celebrate faith and reflect on religion. (Though for most kids, it’s about the presents, and I get this.) Now as an adult, when the holidays approach, I think of Christmas trees. They hold a fond place in my heart and stir memories of years past, a connection between me and my father.

I was raised in rural northern Michigan, Wexford County: Christmas tree country. Back then, the Helsel family was known in Lake City and Manton for having the largest farms and the most trees, and the best option for a teenager to get his first paying job, trimming Christmas trees — a job that started at 6am in dew-soaked summer fields along the long country roads, where rows of little Douglas fir trees seemed to stretch for miles.

We got paid per tree: 25 cents for the smaller trees (if memory serves me correctly). As the trees got larger, more skill and detail were required, and we got paid hourly. In fall, larger trees would be painted, pruned a final time, cut, bound, and shipped downstate and across the Midwest for sale.

My high school buddies would pile into my station wagon at 5:30am, with brown bag lunches, coolers, gallon milk jugs filled with water, and our razor-sharp machetes, ready for a quick six-hour shift in the fields. Our workdays had an early start, but we were done at noon because of the summer heat, free to go fish or hang out at the local watering holes, find mischief, or even take an afternoon nap. Yes, these were the summer days of my youth.

Risks of the job that I remember all too well: hitting an unforeseen hornet's nest in a tree, swinging recklessly — either in a rush or from fatigue — with that machete and gashing yourself. No medics or onsite nurses in these fields. When boredom would set in, an honest wrestling match among the teenage workers would usually ensue. Good honest fun and work, the memories conjure up visions of the 1986 movie set in 1959, Stand by Me.

Fridays were payday. A few hundred dollars cash for a teen in northern Michigan might as well have been a million dollars. It was well earned and well saved.

My father was an intellectual. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and the oldest of seven siblings in a blue-collar family, my dad worked his way through high school and college. He earned an academic scholarship to Michigan State, would go on to earn his masters at Wayne State University, and in the late ’60s, was close to completing his Ph.D. However, in protest of the politics of higher education, academia, and the American political environment at the time, Dad decided not to turn in his dissertation.

My sister would inform me years later of the acronym ABD — all but dissertation. Withholding his dissertation, a well-written thesis that now sits in a box in my garage, was his way of sticking up his middle finger at the establishment. 

Driven by his values and principles, his choices would shape most of the rest of his life and that of our family's life. This is what led him and my mother to northern Michigan — a 40-acre organic farm, a dirt road, a collection of animals, apple orchards, alfalfa fields, running water, but no neighbors and no cable TV. Pure, clean, good living.

My father was a dreamer and an entrepreneur. He started many things but possibly finished even less. Dad brainstormed revolutionary ideas on the back of a napkin and on his yellow legal pads almost daily. I still have many a list: how to market, start-up costs, ideal collaborators, and clients.

Wind, solar power, and alternative energy were some of my dad’s favorite opportunities to noodle. A formal job, my father would never have. He never punched a time clock, never wore a suit, and never had a company car. Free and happy living was his way. I used to say if Dad had a $20 bill in his pocket to make it through a day, he was happy. Sometimes, I’m not sure this was ever the case. I’m not positive, in fact, that he ever held a bank account.

In 1995, my father was in his early 50s, and jobs were somewhat tougher to come by for a highly educated man with many skills but not much of a resume. I could see Dad scrambling, possibly desperate, although he would never show it. So when the holidays came, and a close friend named Duke Wagatha, from Mesick, offered Dad a seasonal job selling Christmas trees at his lot in Livonia, at Plymouth and Middlebelt roads to be exact, he happily accepted.

With his long beard, glasses, puffy brown coat, and winter hat, my dad looked a little like Santa. He lived in a small trailer on the tree lot for the month of December. My sister and I visited Dad at the tree lot, and even though he claimed to love the job —seeing all the families, chatting with the kids, and kicking off their Christmas season with the perfect tree —  I left there sad and distraught.

How could this be the life my father had chosen? Wasn’t he lonely?

I would never get the answers to those questions; my father would pass away the next fall in Kingsley — out in the woods, in a small trailer, with no running water, no electricity, or even a cell phone. “Off the grid,” as he liked to say. As tough as it has been for me to come to terms with his life and lifestyle, I have the utmost respect for a man who let his actions and life be a symbol for his beliefs.

With my father, actions did speak louder than words. And I hope the way he worked and lived and shared with those he loved and those he crossed paths with resonates today: Live an honest life, simple and pure. Love and respect Mother Earth. And love and be a role model for our children. Life is that simple. 

How ironic, yet true to the circle of life, that my first job and my father's last are tied to Christmas trees. I still believe in the magic of the holidays, that for a month or even a day, everyone can take time to reflect, be kind, show appreciation, and give thanks for the gift of life and the precious relationships we have within it. 

Tis the season.