A familiar Christmas song reminds us to “deck the halls with boughs of holly.”

Trees and people share a habit of sometimes hanging on to things that should be shed.

The first time I helped my mom make a pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving dinner, my job was to retrieve the spices for the filling. I knew what cinnamon and nutmeg were, but what in the world was allspice?

The more I know about and understand the trees that live around me at home, the more connected I feel to their tree relatives around the world.