Take pride in Carolina’s mountain heritage

North Carolina ranks second in the nation for growing Christmas trees, trailing only Oregon. But the “Perfect Christmas Tree” grows only in North Carolina – in and around Spruce Pine in Mitchell County. 

The town of about 2,100 people is determined to keep alive the memory of one of its local celebrities – the late Dr. Gloria Houston, who in 1988 wrote the classic children’s Christmas story, “The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree.” 

The story takes place during World War I. Gloria Houston’s lead character is a young girl named “Ruthie,” who is growing up in the fictional community of “Pine Grove,” in the North Carolina mountains.

 

Ruthie and Papa venture off in the spring of 1918 to choose a Christmas tree for the local church – a balsam fir “that grows up high, near to heaven.” They found the ideal tree “on the edge of a high cliff on Grandfather Mountain.” 

They tied a red ribbon, taken from Ruthie’s hair, around the very “tip-tip-top” of that balsam fir, so they could find their perfect tree when they returned in December to harvest it. 

Papa was called to go off to war as a soldier that summer. Ruthie and her mother were left to tend the farm. After the Armistice was signed on Nov. 11, 1918, the soldiers began returning home. 

Ruthie and her mother would go to the Tweetsie Railroad train station at Pineola every day, anticipating Papa’s return…but the calendar flipped to Christmas Eve, and still no Papa. 

It was up to Ruthie and her mother to trudge through the snow under a full moon to cut down the tree with the red ribbon at the “tip-tip-top” and drag it back to the village, aided by their trusty horse, “Old Piedy.” 

Papa arrived on Christmas Day, just in time to see Ruthie as the angel in the Christmas play at church. 

It’s not a sad story, but it moves adults to tears. Pam Kelley, an author and journalist from Charlotte, says she mentioned her sobbing to Gloria Houston.

 Gloria Houston with her granddaughters

“She wasn’t surprised,” Kelley wrote. “The story never makes children cry,” Houston said. “They’re not sentimental. But adults – that’s another story.” 

Gloria Houston’s mother, Ruth Etta Greene Houston, was the inspiration for young Ruthie in the book. 

Ruth was the proprietor of Sunny Brook Store in Kalmia, a small community about five miles down the road from Spruce Pine. Ruth died in 2014, at age 99. She was a natural storyteller who for years and years entertained schoolchildren who visited the store to hear the stories of mountain life that inspired her daughter’s books. 

Kelley interviewed David Singleton, the executive director of the public library system in Savannah, Ga. He grew up in northwestern North Carolina and appreciates “how Houston’s stories break stereotypes of mountain people.” 

“When ‘The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, came out,” Singleton said, “there weren’t a lot of books that portrayed rural mountain people with the dignity and intelligence that she did.” 

Kelley added: “I loved Houston’s knack for capturing the cadence, culture and humor of Appalachia.”

“The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree” begins: “It was getting toward Christmas in the valley of Pine Grove. The wise folk said the old woman in the sky was picking her geese, for the Appalachian Mountains lay blanketed with snow.” 

Gloria Houston died in 2016, at age 75, after a long battle with cancer. Her spirit remains embodied in the people of Spruce Pine.