HEARTS OF APPALACHIA PROJECT

Before truckloads of perfect firs showed up in parking lots, Christmas trees in Appalachia came straight from the mountains themselves — usually a scrappy, sweet-smelling cedar growing stubborn as a mule on the hillside, the very heart of an Appalachian family Christmas tradition . A week or so before Christmas, Daddy would holler, “Come on, young’uns — let’s go find us a tree!” And just like that, the whole troop bundled up and headed toward the ridge, boots crunching frost-

When Christmas Came in the Mailbox Long before Amazon trucks rumbled down our hollers, Christmas arrived in a much quieter way — tucked in the mailbox between the electric bill and the coal company coupon. It was the Sears Christmas Wish Book , better known across the mountains as the Wish Book . That catalog didn’t just show things. It showed possibility . Mama would set it on the kitchen table like it was made of glass, smoothing the cover with her apron. The kids circled l