Santa's Forest was a labor of love - for a while - when we novice Christmas Tree growers began.

Gay and I were always like two peas in a pod, always together and happy with each other. We were sisters and best friends. In the photo above, we were dressed for school. 

When Gay graduated from high school and enrolled in the University of Georgia, I transferred from Georgia State College for Women and entered UGA as a junior. We actually roomed together my senior year.

Years later after Barry and I married and Gay married Stu, he took a job in our home town. Gay and I were overjoyed. Now we could be together as much as we wanted. 

Each year the four of us climbed into Barry's truck and drove down to Moultrie, GA and bought our Christmas trees from a Choose and Cut farm. It looked like the growers were having so much fun. Christmas music rang out over the crowds who poured into the fields and voices of children could be heard everywhere. This trip put us into the Christmas spirit and we were as happy as any of the kids we saw that day.

On one of these trips, Gay suggested we start our own Christmas Tree farm, the four of us. I immediately said no.

 "It's hard work and I don't think I can physically do it," I said. 

Barry said he didn't have time and didn't want to spend his weekends working on a farm. My sister was determined she could raise trees and if we didn't go in with her, she would do it alone. What a quandary we found ourselves involved in! I didn't want her having to do all the work alone. Besides, we had always been a good team. She assured me I would not have to do anything that was too hard for me. I finally gave in and badgered Barry until he agreed to help. But his heart was not in it. 

Little did I know just what was involved in growing trees in south Georgia. We chose five acres of the family farm and planted an acre each year. In the photo below it is February, planting time. It does get cold in south Georgia in winter. We had to order the plants and they came in bulk. Gay and I are heeling them in behind my house. They had to immediately go into the ground to keep them alive 

until we could plant them in the field. 

Barry and Stu went to their jobs every day, and Gay and I became farmers. We traveled around and talked to the experts about what trees we should plant and what kind of care they needed. We found out that the best tree to grow in our area was Virginia Pines. These trees had to be pruned twice a year to shape them like Christmas Trees. Otherwise they would grow up like any pine tree in the woods.

We had a quite an investment to make including buying a tractor from our friend, Mike Johnson, who owned a tractor company. We fell in love with our little Kubota. 

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 Gay who had never driven a tractor, learned quickly. In the bottom photo Barry is on the tractor. You can tell it is cold because he has a scarf around his face and neck.

About the only part of Santa's Forest that Barry liked was driving the Kubota tractor. The horses in the back ground are our horses in a pasture in front of our house.

I am sorry to say that Barry and I finally had to sell out our share of the farm to my sister and brother-in-law. The spraying had to be done throughout the summer and I was very allergic to the pesticide. Pruning in the hot summers in south Georgia was just more than I could physically handle. But Gay was an excellent pruner. She could shape a tree the same way she could draw a dog or a horse. She had an eye for it. 

She hired teenage boys and she taught them to prune. They dealt with snakes and yellow jackets and still she brought in a great crop of trees each December. Most people did not know that she had to spray green paint on the trees before marketing them. She would be covered with green from her forehead to her boots and I was concerned about what that chemical was doing to her health.

Stu helped her on weekends, but she did the bulk of the work. Although Gay was shy, she gave talks on growing Christmas trees. I was so proud of her, and so was my father who was a farmer. He enjoyed telling people about his daughter who was a farmer.

When selling time came around, people from all around came to purchase a tree from Santa's Forest. The happy Santa on the sign Gay painted and displayed at the entrance put a smile on the faces of all who entered.

I have admired my sister for as long as I can remember. She is not a quitter, no matter how difficult the situation. When they sold the farm to my nephew, the four of us took a Princess cruise to Alaska and had the best time of our lives. 

Gay has a masters degree in Counseling. She is a person who listens and knows how to help people see what they need to do to solve a problem. Family and her friends know we can count on Gay. She has more talents than I can even imagine. An artist and a dancer at heart, she studied sculpture and created some beautiful pieces before she lost vision in one eye due to a torn retina. She studied modern dance at the university. I will post some photos of her dancing in another blog post. 

She is one of those people who will not be handed awards for this or that, but those who know her applaud her generosity and caring for others. Her drawings are in my house and homes of others. The portrait she did of my beloved horse is one of my favorite possessions. 

She is my hero for many reasons and one of them is how she took on all the work of that Christmas Tree farm with no complaint when we wimped out on her. It was her idea to do it and she did it. 

Merry Christmas, Little Sister, and thank you for keeping that Christmas Spirit going all these many years. 

Gay has always loved Christmas. As girls we decorated Mother's tree and her house. Once married Gay put all her talents into making her own house a Christmas delight. Above is one of her trees from a few years ago. This year I have already been there and she has done an even better job of making their house a joy to visit.