Many families enjoy Christmas traditions, the ones that are unique to their family and often passed down from previous generations. My family, my childhood family, had a number of Christmas traditions, including Santa’s visit to the Christmas dinner at church, gold foil-covered coins in our stockings, and bringing home the tree.
I’ve kept some of those traditions and the tree was a favorite, until the boys grew too old to enjoy it. It’s like the ringing of Santa’s sleigh bell in the story “The Polar Express.” As children stopped believing in Santa, they couldn’t hear the bells anymore. The boys don’t find the quest for the right tree to cut an adventure anymore. Gee, men in their twenties; go figure.
My grown daughter, though, still thinks it’s magical; so off we went.
My mother said we often went to Bellwood Nursery or Wade & Gatton, and my sister told me today that she doesn’t remember us kids going along to get the tree. Great, that’s just like me to carry on a tradition that didn’t exist. But I know we went along at least once.
And my dad admonished me, when I borrowed his truck today, that it was a bit early. Our family used to wait till the week before Christmas. But today was the day and the quest took us to Kleerview Farm outside of Bellville.
Kleerview Farm consists of 225 acres, some in Christmas trees and the remainder is farmed to feed Angus brood cows. Kevin and Debbie Kleer started planting the first Christmas trees in 1981. They planted 1,000 trees that first year and they’re still growing—the tree farm, that is. Now they work at growing 17,000 trees on 15 acres.
But adding more trees isn’t the only way they’ve grown, and that was evident when my daughter Megan and I arrived today.
It was only the second day they were open and the place was bustling with people walking among the trees, Santa handing out candy canes to the children, and gators running here and there transporting people and trees. And what’s this? A wooden train big enough for children to play on. The train was a new addition this year.
Debbie Kleer said that yesterday was busy and they sold 178 trees.
There was a commotion at the barn, where visitors can stop in to see the animals. The commotion today was Blitzen, that’s right, a reindeer. Boy, was he antsy. Reindeer Belle and Noel didn’t appear concerned by his excitement, though. The reindeer, by the way, are available for rent to appear at Christmas tree lightings, special events or in parades.
“We bought them last year as babies,” said Debbie Kleer, “so they’re just a year and a half old.”
I met a family from Bellville that was searching for their tree. “We’ve come here every single year since we moved back to Ohio,” Dara Harriger told me as she watched Santa give their three young children a candy cane. As I passed them after they found their tree, Dara pulling the children in a wagon, I noted Ben Harriger carrying a saw. “Every year, he’s our lumberjack,” she replied.
Well, Megan and I had our usual disagreement over the tree. She wanted a bigger one and kept finding empty spaces in the trees I liked. That’s after we got separated and she stood by a tree she liked for like 45 minutes and finally, tearfully, gave up on me tracking her down; but we finally got back together and settled on a tree. The Kleers provide saws if you want to cut the tree yourself, so I did. Thank goodness it wasn’t a big one.
Kleerview Farm is located at 2454 Baughman Rd. outside of Bellville.
