It was a fine tree, Everett's daughter agreed. His wife said it was lopsided and looked like a bush. But that was part of its finenes—it was a tall, lopsided Douglas fir, bare on one side where it had crowded out its neighbour. The branchless side could go against the living-room wall, the bushy side was for decorations, and now the crowded tree in the woods had room to grow. Everett dragged their quarry through the snow by the trunk, and Anne Marie, who was four, clung to the upper branches and rode on her stomach, shouting, 'Faster, Daddy!'

Pam, his wife, followed with an armload of pine boughs and juniper branches. She seemed to have decided not to say anything more about the tree, which was fine with Everett.

The Jimmy was parked where the trail split off from the logging road, and Everett opened the back to throw the tools and boughs in, then roped the tree to the roof with nylon cords. Pam brushed off Anne Marie's snowsuit and buckled her in the front so she wouldn't get carsick. The smell of pine and juniper filled the car as they drove down the mountain.

'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,' Everett sang, in his best lounge-singer croon. 'Jack Frost nipping at your nose.' Here he reached over and nipped at Anne Marie's, and she squealed. He stopped, forgetting the words.

Pam prompted, 'Yuletide carols,' half-singing, shy about her voice.

'Being sung by a choir…' He reached for the high note.

That was when they saw the couple at the side of the road. Folks dressed up like Eskimos: Everett thought for a second that he had conjured them up with his song. The two of them stood in the snow, under the branches of a big lodgepole pine. The man wore a blue parka and held up a broken cross-country ski. The woman wore red gaiters over wool trousers, a man's pea coat and a fur hat. They waved, and Everett slowed to a stop and rolled down the window.

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'O Tannenbaum' will be printed in full in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2. To subscribe to Granta and receive the entire issue free, or to buy a copy of Granta 97, click here.