The Lost Art of Treeing

When I was a kid, most of our family lived
within a fifteen-mile radius. Almost all of my first cousins were a short ride
away. On Christmas Day, my parents would pack us all into the car and head out
to do some treeing (after the gifts were opened, of course).

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Treeing, in case you’ve never heard the term,
was simple. We would drop in on all my aunts and uncles to “see their tree.” Most
of the time, we didn’t even call ahead. We just stopped in (and they seemed to
expect us). Seeing their tree also involved eating their food, drinking their
drinks, and visiting—mostly visiting. This also included the pleasantries of being
shown all the gifts everyone in that household had received.

Our treeing usually lasted a couple of days
and was then reciprocated by most of the relatives who would come over to our
house to see our tree (and our presents). What it really amounted to was a
great excuse for everyone to visit each other. Between Christmas day and New
Years, we pretty much saw everybody we knew. (That might be an exaggeration, but
not much of one.)

Getting Together

Treeing was something we looked forward to each
year along with the Fourth of July family get togethers and the occasional
ballgames. There’s nothing quite like family and nothing quite like treeing to
bring them together. At least, that’s how it was in the old days.

Some of you may remember participating in the
whole treeing thing. If you do, you probably grew up in a small town or a rural
area. At least, that’s my guess. It’s also my guess that you don’t do it anymore.
Our society is so mobile these days, many of us live in faraway places with
wide spaces between our families and us. We don’t go treeing at our neighbors’
homes because we just don’t neighbor the way we used to either.

Facebook Treeing

Anymore, the only treeing we do is on
Facebook. It’s just not the same as the real thing. Social media is good for a
lot of things, but there’s no real substitute for face-to-face give-and-take when
building relationships. Skype and Facetime are helpful, but they just can’t
replace what we used to do. We honed the artform of treeing to perfection. Now,
it seems to be a lost art.

I’m not sure if we’ll ever get back to that
kind of practice again, but it would be a really good move in my opinion. Of
course, the place this should be happening in absence of nearby kin is the
church. In his first epistle, John flat out told us (the church) that “if we
walk in the light” (which we’re supposed to be doing), we’ll be having “fellowship
with one another.” (1 John 1:7) Unfortunately, treeing
seems to be a lost art there as well.

I guess we’re too societally disjointed to
make a good attempt at it. Once we’ve lost it in the church, we’ve got problems.

[Dave Zuchelli is a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and
currently resides in Aldie, VA.]

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