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On the last Christmas before she died, two years ago, my sister Emma had urged me to go with her to  visit the Moore’s, where we had gotten the best trees and wreaths over the years but I made an excuse—too much to do. Betty had some good stories about our father, Emma said, besides bringing in a bumper crop of Christmas trees from the mountains. 

This season before Christmas, alone at home in Halifax, I was missing the family I’ve lost—my parents, Emma and my dear husband John. That’s occupying too much real estate in the cemetery. 

My sister Anne and I  have been placing wreaths on the graves of our dear lost ones to continue our family tradition.   I remember my grandmother making a wreath for her husband and her parents.  They are all in the graveyard behind St. John’s Church in Halifax, Virginia. The wreaths mark our remembrance, never to forget them in the rush of holiday parties and festivities.  But usually we just order them from the comfort of our homes. 

On the road to wreath country

Partly to get out of the house, and as homage to Emma, I drive out to the Moore’s –six miles through lot of red clay and pines, along the two-lane road, turning right onto a one-lane road into the deep country further through tall cedar trees, down a gravel road where over 200 Fraser Fir had been assembled, awaiting dispatch.   The family works as a team—Jerry, his son and two grandsons out in winter gear, loading and cutting the trees for delivery or for those who drive up from town.

In a covered greenhouse, where tomatoes grow in season, I met Betty Moore and her sister Melinda Lewis making wreaths  with boughs cut from the sold Christmas trees.

The wreath-making operation

Betty is immediately engaging.  She tells me how her father and the older Mr. Moore were hunting buddies.  My father used to keep hunting dogs out here, because he didn’t want my mother to know he had even more than the four or five he kept in pens at the house.  My father loved to come up to their farm to hunt for then-plentiful quail.  They raised baby quail and planted shrubs and grasses to attract the wild ones.In summer, he would buy fresh vegetables from their extensive garden, on over 150 acres.  There’s been a garden here for centuries, since the family got the property through a land grant from the King of England, Betty says. And over in a field to the left, the winter root vegetable, cabbages and kale are thriving.

“We started with vegetables and growing flowers,” she explains.”Jerry and I decided to raise a few tomato plants.  That turned into eight greenhouses.  One day Jerry says we haven’t got anything for the winter.  We got five Christmas trees up in Floyd County.”

The Fraser Fir thrives in the mountains.  It’s the preferred species, Bettty says, because it stays green for the longest time, doesn’t shed, and has tough branches for hanging the heaviest ornaments. “It doesn’t stick you up, either,” she adds.

“People call me.  I need Christ trees this big, this wide.  They never come and look at the tree.”  Tney trust the Moore’s to deliver the perfect tree and put it up.

Betty is laid back as a warm summer day, even though this is their rush hour. It’s warm in the greenhouse, the aroma of fresh pine intoxicating, the talk relaxing. Betty goes on.

On one of those first trips to Floyd County, Betty was entranced with the beautiful wreaths sold at the Christmas tree farm.  Down in the basement, she was introduced to a one-woman  wreath-making operation: one woman turned a metal frame and inserted pine boughs in a circle. Jerry ordered the round metal rings in different sizes and a pump mechanism on the floor which you step on and secure the bunch of pine boughs to the metal frame.

Floyd County wreaths

At the helm, Melinda takes a long pine branch and clamps it to start the ring.  Then she snaps in the other branches move from there.

Sometimes customers will ask for special additions.  I brought holly for the three I ordered for the graves of my family, especially for my father, who planted a grove of holly trees in our yard. The holly berries were thick as grapes on the branches.

Garland machine

To add to the wreath-making operation later, Mr. Akers, the local jeweler in town, gave the Moore’s a garland machine.  I remember Mr. Akers as a kind man who had been injured in the war.  He had a slight limp. As a jeweler he had a lot of fine motor skills and the technical ability to fix watches and tiny jewels.  I never knew he dealt in big Christmas trees, but Betty says he and his family sold  them on Spencer’s Hill during the season, on the main road between Halifax and South Boston. His machine is like a sewing machine for pine boughs. 

Betty, seated at the machine with her foot on the machine’s pedal, points out that you have two strings to be concerned about—one thread that runs through the garland and the wire that holds it together. I order a 6 foot garland for my railing. Pumping her foot as she straightens out the woven boughs, Betty completes my 6 foot garland in 15 minutes. 

When she puts it in my car, I am embarrassed by a plastic one that I had picked up at a store the previous day that looks pitiful beside the full fir branches. The live evergreens fill the car with the most wonderful fresh pine aroma, way stronger than those candles that purport to emit Fraser Fir.

Once Melinda completes the evergreen wreath, she adds a big bow, redder than a holly berry.  They can loop a perfect bow, in a minute. Betty always does 7 loops for Christmas.  Sometimes the loops are uneven.  That’s just how it comes out, she says.  Each loop she embellishes with good wishes for whomever gets the wreath, she says.

The perfect 7-loop bow

I think, 7 times 4, 28 good wishes to be laid on the graves.  And I will add more wishes.

These wreaths bring sweet memories of Christmases past. I found out perhaps as a message from Emma, who always took time out to talk to people and learn their stories, this visit is about more than a wreath. It’s about wishes and stories that warm the heart.

Best wishes to you for the holidays!

Here is the wreath I made for my door from Halifax greens and Betty’s bow:

Happy Holidays!