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Donated trees ease strain on family budgets

  • Published
  • By Veronica Craker
  • Northwest Guardian
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. --  Santa's helpers may have been dressed in green and red, but they were a far cry from the North Pole elves.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord service members donned red and white Santa hats to help welcome the holiday season as they unloaded hundreds of Christmas trees at American Lake Conference Center Dec. 2.

The service members created a human assembly line as they unloaded 800 Christmas trees while dancing around to holiday music. The service members were unloading the trees in preparation for the Dec. 3 Trees for Troops distribution day.

Staff Sergeant Amber Ricketson, 627th Security Forces Squadron, and her family were one of two families to receive their trees. Ricketson was joined by her husband, Nick, and their four children ages 5 to 10. This will be the couple's first Christmas with a live tree.

"We've actually never done a real tree so we're excited to do it this year," Ricketson said. "I've looked at the prices for fake trees and they are getting expensive."

The trees were donated by the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 2005 as the charitable branch of the National Christmas Tree Association, which supports the farm-grown Christmas tree industry. Each year, Trees for Troops partners with FedEx to deliver trees to military families and troops in the U.S. and at overseas bases. The partners have been delivering trees to the base for more than 10 years. It's just one way organizations are working to help service members during the holiday months.
 
"You (have) Halloween and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas then New Year's (Eve) all combined," Ricketson said. "It puts such a strain on the budget. Money is already tight as it is, so this really helps us out."

Specialist Taikiya Boykins and her family also received their tree Dec. 2. Boykins said she was surprised and honored to be chosen for a free tree.

"I don't know if it's supposed to be a surprise, but I loved that it was," she said. "I had no plans to get a tree. We did not prepare at all."

She said it was helpful for families like hers.

"I think it's a great idea, especially for the (junior) enlisted with kids," she said.

Boykins said it simply wasn't in her family's budget to get a Christmas tree this holiday.

"It was not on my mind to decorate for the holidays," she said. "Now we are."

To learn more about the Trees for Troops program, visit christmasspiritfoundation.org.