“Lloyd, why don’t you take Sara to get some crowsfoot for a centerpiece.” My mother said this in her school administrator voice, not her cheerful mom voice.

My mother was a whirlwind of mixing bowls and table linens, preparing for her family to attend our annual pre-Christmas gathering. With visions of sparkly presents and over-frosted cookies dancing in my head, I was far too excited to be civilized like my sister, who was sedately reading on the couch and throwing dirty looks my way when no one was looking. I had spent the thirty minutes since I’d been home from school stomping around the kitchen, expressing my opinions on vegetables, and being loud for no reason. My mother tried tethering me with the task of grinding nuts for the cheese ball, but instead, I had upended a mixing bowl while trying to sneak a fingerful of icing for the cake she was baking.

She had had enough of me.

I hadn’t seen my dad standing near the front door  and before I knew it, he grabbed me by the scruff of my sweatshirt and directed me to the front door while I squirmed and tried to wriggle from his grasp, protests and indignant complaints streaming from my mouth. Somehow, he managed to get me into my boots and coat before depositing me onto the back porch.

Before I knew it, we were headed down the trail behind our house with our gun-shy English Pointer, Sissy. The trail meandered through a long grove of pines and greenbriar, past the chicken coop, and into our strawberry field before descending into the woods and wandering along the mossy banks of a small stream.

“What is crowsfoot anyway!” I demanded. I was cross and sour about my abrupt removal from the kitchen, and was picturing the black feet of crows somehow growing up from the ground.

“Something to make little girls ask questions,” he’d replied before whistling for Sissy who had run off after a deer.

Crowsfoot is another name for running cedar, an evergreen perennial you can find on the floor of most forests from Canada all the way down to Alabama. The small, fernlike fronds you see above the ground are connected by long viney runners making them a favorite target for gatherers of holiday greenery. However, it takes several years, a few decades even, for these plants to grow large enough to make a decent wreath so it’s better to enjoy them where they appear on the forest floor.

I groaned as loudly as possible and fell into step behind my dad as we followed the path through the darkening woods. The sounds of the rustling leaves and the occasional bird calls accompanied our mismatched footfalls. He whistled again for Sissy and she came bounding back through the fallen leaves, stirring up the earthy acidic smell of the dark, rich soil that lay underneath. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke in the cold air and as the light began to dim, my body cooled down, and my mind began to go quiet. I watched in silence as my dad showed me places where bucks had rubbed their antlers on the pines and pointed out a red cardinal. “That’s your mom’s favorite,” he’d said.

By the time we found ourselves back in the strawberry field, the once pale blue sky had turned indigo, a crimson edge peeking just above the trees. My dad produced a short pair of hedge clippers from the pocket of his heavy blue coat and cut a few branches of cedar and holly from the edge of the field to take back to the house.

“That’s not crowsfoot,” I said, no longer cross, worried mom would be mad we didn’t find any.

“This is just fine,” he said, handing me a branch.

Sissy ran ahead of us as we made our way up the path to the house. It was almost completely dark now and the smell of woodsmoke filled my nose. The twilight vision of dark trees and emerging stars diminished as we approached the warm light streaming through the kitchen window. Inside, I could smell the stew that had been cooking on the stove all day and my stomach growled.

I took my boots off and made my way into the living room where my sister still sat reading. A fire was visible through the glass door of the wood stove and I sat down on the brick hearth to warm my hands, stiff and numb from the cold night air. I stared at the multicolored lights of the Christmas tree, imagining reindeer running through that starry sky above me, until my mother called me to the table for dinner.

“We didn’t get any crowsfoot,” I told her, knowing she’d be on to us when she only saw holly and pine branches.

“That’s okay honey,” she said. “Your father really needed to go for a walk.”