Christmas Trees
(A Christmas Circular Letter)
THE CITY had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
Christmas Trees Summary and Analysis
At the edge of a snowy rural property, a stranger from the city arrives to ask whether the owner will sell his fir trees as Christmas trees. What begins as a practical business inquiry gradually turns into a gentle but revealing negotiation between two worlds: the commercial city, which wants to turn the trees into holiday goods, and the country owner, who feels both the temptation of profit and the deeper attachment of place. The encounter is framed as a "circular letter," so the poem also carries the form of a seasonal greeting, folding commerce, hospitality, and holiday good will into a single exchange.
The poem's central movement is inward. The owner first resists the idea of selling, then realizes how easily the trees could be priced and removed, and finally settles on refusal, not out of simple stubbornness but out of a sense that the trees belong to the land more fully than to the market. Frost lets the speaker's thoughts wander between pride, practicality, and irony: he can see the city's needs, yet he also sees the absurdity of reducing living trees to a cheap calculation. The ending turns that tension into a gift of words rather than wood, as the speaker can offer only a Christmas wish in place of the trees themselves.
Tone in Christmas Trees
Frost's tone is amused, observant, and lightly ironic, but it never becomes harsh or sentimental. He handles the city visitor with a kind of dry courtesy, and even his resistance has the shape of politeness rather than outrage. The mood for the reader is wintry and reflective, with a faint comic edge: the snowy setting feels calm and intimate, yet the conversation keeps exposing the uneasy fit between affection for the land and the pressures of the marketplace.
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Themes in Christmas Trees
- Rural identity - The poem defends the value of the countryside as something distinct from urban commerce, showing how the land, the trees, and the speaker's sense of self are closely bound together.
- Commerce versus belonging - The city wants to buy and remove the trees, but the speaker feels that ownership is not the same as permission to strip the land of what gives it character.
- Irony of value - Frost plays with the difference between market price and personal worth, making the low payment seem almost absurd beside the emotional and visual value of the trees.
- Holiday generosity - Although the poem begins with a sale, it ends as a Christmas greeting, suggesting that the season is supposed to encourage giving rather than taking.
- Nature and permanence - The trees are imagined as part of the hillside and the life of the farm, not as temporary merchandise, which gives them a lasting dignity.
- Speech and social courtesy - The speaker's hesitation, politeness, and indirectness shape the encounter, revealing how manners can mask deeper resistance or uncertainty.
Literary Devices in Christmas Trees
- Blank verse - The poem uses unrhymed iambic pentameter to sound conversational while still carrying a controlled, reflective rhythm.
- Dialogue - The back-and-forth exchange with the city visitor gives the poem dramatic energy and lets the conflict emerge naturally.
- Irony - The speaker treats the trees as both ordinary property and precious objects, while the city reduces them to a bargain, creating a quiet comic tension.
- Extended metaphor - The trees are repeatedly compared to church spires and vestry trees, linking natural beauty with sacred and communal meaning.
- Imagery - Snow, foliage, pasture, and fir balsams create a vivid winter landscape that grounds the poem's economic dispute in sensory detail.
- Understatement - The speaker's remarks often sound modest or casual, but they carry strong feeling beneath the surface, especially in his refusal to sell.
- Juxtaposition - Frost places city and country, profit and gift, cutting and keeping side by side to sharpen the poem's moral contrast.
Symbolism in Christmas Trees
- The Christmas trees - They symbolize the beauty of the natural world and the tension between living growth and commercial use.
- The city stranger - He represents urban demand, market thinking, and the impulse to turn nature into seasonal consumption.
- The pasture - The land suggests rooted ownership, stewardship, and the speaker's attachment to place.
- Church spires - The comparison lifts the trees beyond mere merchandise, hinting at devotion, dignity, and shared ritual.
- The letter - The poem's frame as a holiday circular turns the whole encounter into a social gift, even as it recounts a business visit.
Historical Context of Christmas Trees
Robert Frost wrote in a style that often joined ordinary speech with formal verse, and this poem reflects that balance especially well. Its blank verse, rural setting, and careful conversational movement place it within Frost's larger interest in New England life and in the pressures modern life places on older forms of connection to land and labor.
The poem also belongs to a period when American poetry was increasingly attentive to everyday speech, regional experience, and the changing relationship between rural spaces and modern commerce. Its Christmas setting draws on familiar seasonal customs, but Frost uses those customs to examine how holiday ritual can be shaped by buying, selling, and the cultural divide between city and country.
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