Christmas Trees

By Robert Frost

“Christmas Trees” is a poem by Robert Frost, subtitled “A Christmas Circular Letter.” He first sent it to friends as a handwritten holiday letter in December 1915 and then collected it in Mountain Interval (Henry Holt, 1916), where it follows “The Road Not Taken.”

In 60 lines of blank verse, a buyer from the city offers a farmer three cents apiece for his young fir trees, and the farmer refuses, turning the bargain into a Christmas greeting.

Our reading is that the poem is a small, funny essay on what things are worth. The buyer measures the trees by the market, and the speaker, who almost sells, learns their worth from the shock of the offer. In the end, he settles the question with “a simple calculation” of his own: a tree is worth more as a gift than as a sale, and the poem itself becomes the gift.

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Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

It is late fall, after the summer people have gone back to the city, and a stranger drives into the speaker’s farmyard. He turns out to be “the city come again,” looking for Christmas trees, and he asks to buy the young fir balsams on the speaker’s land.

The speaker had never thought of the firs as Christmas trees. He doubts he is tempted, though he admits he would hate to hold on to them longer than good sense allows, since everything must come at last to “the trial by market.”

Partly from politeness, he says there are not enough to be worth the trouble. The buyer asks to look them over anyway, and the two walk the pasture, the buyer nodding at the best-shaped trees.

Finally, the buyer names his count: a thousand. Then he names his price, thirty dollars, which works out to three cents a tree.

Now the speaker is certain he never meant to sell. Friends in the city would pay a dollar for trees like these, so he closes with a joke: the trees are worth three cents more to give away than to sell. Since he cannot fit one into a letter, he sends his wishes for a Merry Christmas instead.

The Poem

The text below follows the first edition of Mountain Interval (Henry Holt, 1916), as transcribed by Project Gutenberg (eBook #29345). We print Gutenberg’s double hyphens as dashes and its straight quotation marks as curly ones; the words and punctuation are otherwise unchanged.

Two lines are split between speakers and printed in two parts, the way Frost set them. We count each split line once, so the poem runs to 60 lines, and the line numbers on this page follow that count.

(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.

Background

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874, and grew up mostly in New England after his father’s death in 1885. After years of farming in Derry, New Hampshire, he took his family to England in 1912, where his first two books, A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914), made his name.

The Frosts came home early in 1915, partly because of the war, and that summer they moved to a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire. The firs on and around the land became part of the family’s life and of Frost’s poetry.

“Christmas Trees” began as a holiday letter. In December 1915, Frost sent handwritten copies to friends, including one dated December 19 to the Tilley family and one on Christmas Eve to the poet and anthologist Louis Untermeyer. His daughter Lesley illustrated the first page of each, and the letters were signed from Frost and the children.

Frost later told a local reporter that he wrote the poem on Christmas morning, but the surviving letters show it was finished at least a week earlier. He revised it for Mountain Interval, his third collection, published by Henry Holt in 1916.

The poem later had a second life as a Christmas card. In 1929, Joseph Blumenthal of the Spiral Press printed it as his firm’s annual greeting, with the publisher’s permission, and Frost asked for a few copies to send to his own friends.

Starting in 1934, Frost and Blumenthal produced a new Christmas booklet of his poems every year. The tradition lasted until the Christmas before Frost’s death in January 1963.

Analysis and Themes

“Christmas Trees” looks like a light holiday piece, and it is one. Underneath the joke, it is a careful poem about the city and the country, about money, and about how a writer turns an awkward moment into a gift.

The City Comes to the Country

The poem opens with balanced phrases: the city has “withdrawn into itself / And left at last the country to the country.” The stranger is less a person than the city in disguise, someone who “looked the city” but has learned enough country manners to wait in his car until someone comes out.

What the city wants is something “it had left behind / And could not do without and keep its Christmas.” Frost gives the city its due. It needs the country, and the trees it buys will stand in churches and homes, but it can only see them as stock.

The Trial by Market

The speaker is not a sentimental farmer. He admits he would hate to keep his trees “Beyond the time of profitable growth,” and he accepts that there is a “trial by market everything must come to.” That line, with its odd word order, sounds like a proverb, and it holds the poem’s whole tension between thrift and feeling.

His first refusal is not even honest. Out of “mistaken courtesy” or a hope of hearing his trees praised, he says there are not enough to be worth while. The buyer takes him at his word and goes to look, and the speaker is drawn into a bargain he never meant to make.

Three Cents Apiece

The turning point is a number. A thousand trees sounds like wealth until the buyer, sensing the speaker’s surprise, turns it into money: “thirty dollars.” The speaker’s quick arithmetic, three cents a tree, shows him what the market thinks his woods are worth.

His reaction is comic self-control: “Never show surprise!” Yet the gap between three cents and the dollar that city friends would pay is what settles his mind. The market price is too small to take seriously, and so the trees return to the world of gifts.

A Poem That Becomes a Gift

The last lines turn the story into a greeting. Since the trees are “Worth three cents more to give away than sell,” and he cannot fit one into a letter, the speaker sends the poem instead. The “simple calculation” is a joke at the expense of the buyer’s arithmetic.

The subtitle, “A Christmas Circular Letter,” matters here. A circular letter is one copied and sent to many people, and Frost really did mail the poem to friends that December, so its last line was once a real Christmas wish.

Form and Technique

“Christmas Trees” is written in blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, the meter Frost used for the longer New England narratives of North of Boston. He loosens it with the rhythms of speech, so that a line like “I said, ‘There aren’t enough to be worth while’” sounds like talk rather than verse.

The dialogue is set out the way Frost set it in his dramatic poems. Lines 31 and 41 are each shared between two speakers, with the second half dropped to a new line, so the reader can hear the pause as one man waits for the other.

Frost also plays with repetition. “The country to the country” in line 2, the two “whirls” of lines 3 and 4, and the two “enough”s of line 54 make the verse turn back on itself, a habit that suits a speaker who keeps second-guessing his own motives.

The poem ends with a run of short, self-contained sentences. After the long, winding sentences of the bargaining, the last six lines land like the closing of a letter: an exclamation, a calculation, a regret, and a wish.

Notable Lines

Three passages carry most of the poem’s meaning and humor.

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.

Lines 9 to 11

Frost turns the visitor into a symbol without losing the comedy. The city has left something behind, and it needs the country to have its Christmas at all.

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.

Lines 21 to 24

These are the knottiest lines in the poem. The speaker would hate to hold out longer than other farmers do, because in the end everything faces the market. Line 24 is the phrase readers most often remember.

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.

Lines 55 to 57

The discovery that he owns a thousand trees comes at the same moment as the decision not to sell them. The “simple calculation” is a mock proof, and the joke is that it makes sense anyway.

Themes

Four ideas run through the poem, all tied to the question of what the trees are for.

Value

The poem asks what makes something worth having. The buyer measures the trees by count and price, while the speaker discovers their worth only when he hears how little they would fetch.

Country and City

Frost sets the farmer’s slow, observant way of life against the city’s needs. The two depend on each other, but the poem’s sympathy stays with the country, where the trees are woods before they are merchandise.

Generosity

The answer to the market is the gift. By sending a greeting instead of selling his trees, the speaker restores the spirit of Christmas that the buyer’s errand had forgotten.

Self-Doubt

The speaker is never quite sure of his motives. He doubts he was tempted, would hate to admit it if he was, and refuses partly out of courtesy, and Frost lets this uncertainty give the poem its humor.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about “Christmas Trees”.

What Is “Christmas Trees” by Robert Frost About?

A man from the city visits a farm in late fall and offers to buy the farmer’s young fir trees to sell at Christmas. When the farmer learns that a thousand trees would bring only thirty dollars, three cents apiece, he decides they are worth more to give away than to sell, and the poem ends as a Christmas greeting.

What Is a Christmas Circular Letter?

A circular letter is a single letter copied and sent to many people, much like a modern holiday newsletter. Frost’s subtitle is literal: in December 1915, he mailed handwritten copies of the poem to friends as his Christmas greeting, a year before publishing it in Mountain Interval (1916).

How Much Did the Buyer Offer for the Trees?

Thirty dollars for a thousand trees, which works out to three cents a tree. The speaker compares that with the dollar his city friends would pay for a good tree, and the gap convinces him not to sell.

What Does “The Trial by Market Everything Must Come To” Mean?

In line 24, the speaker admits that sooner or later everything is judged by what it will sell for. He does not want to hold on to his trees out of mere sentiment, which is why the buyer’s offer tempts him at all.

Where Did Frost Write “Christmas Trees”?

At his farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where the family moved in the summer of 1915 after returning from England. The firs on and around the farm were part of the family’s daily life, and the poem’s pasture of young balsams reflects that landscape.

Glossary

Most of the poem’s words are everyday ones, but a few rural terms and turns of phrase reward a closer look.

• circular letter (subtitle): A letter copied and sent to many people.
• withdrawn into itself (line 1): Gone back home; the summer visitors have left the country for the season.
• looked the city (line 5): Looked like a city person.
• A-buttoning (line 8): Buttoning; the a- prefix is an old rural form.
• fir balsams (line 13): Balsam firs, fragrant evergreens long popular as Christmas trees.
• profitable growth (line 23): The stage at which a tree is worth the most for cutting.
• dallied (line 25): Toyed with an idea without committing to it.
• mistaken courtesy (line 26): Politeness that leads someone to say what they do not mean.
• lop (line 34): Cut off; here, crowd so closely that the lower branches die.
• buyer’s moderation (line 38): The restraint of a buyer who does not want to seem too eager.
• vestry-trees (line 53): Trees big enough for a church hall or a Sunday school party.

In Popular Culture

Since the Spiral Press card of 1929, the poem has often been printed on its own at Christmas. A picture-book edition illustrated by Ted Rand was published by Henry Holt in 1990, introducing the poem to younger readers.

Related Poems

If “Christmas Trees” speaks to you, these poems share its season, its New England setting, or its talkative blank verse.

• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost: Another Frost poem of New England woods in winter, where a traveler pauses between duty and wonder.
• Birches by Robert Frost: A blank-verse poem from the same book, Mountain Interval, in which the trees of a New England farm carry the poet’s thoughts.
• Mending Wall by Robert Frost: A blank-verse encounter between two farmers, with the same mix of humor and stubborn independence.
• The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost: A dramatic poem that, like “Christmas Trees,” tells its story mostly through talk.
• The Oxen by Thomas Hardy: A Christmas poem by an older contemporary that, like Frost’s, mixes rural custom with gentle doubt.