Way back in the murky mists of time—that is to say, in my 2009 NaNoWriMo draft of what eventually became Land of Hills and Valleys—there were some unfinished Christmas scenes, including one where several characters went to cut down a Christmas tree. Since it didn’t advance the story at all, I didn’t include it in the rewritten version of the manuscript. This month, I thought it might be fun to dig out that unused scene and polish it up enough to share as an “outtake.” It wasn’t exactly good enough for that (I must say, it’s reassuring to see how much my writing has improved in twelve years), but I ended up taking the idea and a few lines from the original scene and wrote a couple of pages based off it.

It’s fairly different from the fragment in the old draft—Tony was originally in the scene too, and I decided to leave out some dialogue which I’d repurposed for a different scene in the finished novel. Chronologically, this would come around the beginning of Chapter 12 in Land of Hills and Valleys, and there are no spoilers for the novel in it. As far as story goes, it’s pure and total fluff, but I thought you might enjoy it:

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As Christmas drew closer I found myself harboring a nonsensical but potent longing: I wanted a Christmas tree. It didn’t make any sense, since I’d been invited to celebrate with the Stevensons. I was the only person in the house; there wouldn’t be anyone else to open gifts beside it on Christmas morning—no family to gather around it. But I wanted one all the same. I kept remembering how the Drapers’ big staid brick house, never very homelike at most times, seemed lit up by the big glowing tree in their parlor every December, and how it lent an extra touch of life and brightness to the faces and voices of the friends and relatives who gathered however briefly about it. Then I would look around the weather-beaten little ranch house and find it a bit bare and lonely on the short winter afternoons, marooned amid a white sea of great sweeping snowdrifts. A tree of any kind would make it seem more like a home.

I couldn’t go and cut one down by myself, but I still couldn’t bring myself to ask any of my ranch hands, even—or perhaps especially?—Ray. I was sure I’d see a smile or the twinkle of an eye that was entirely obliging but indulgent—I couldn’t bear to have anyone else see my silly little dream for exactly what it was.

I stalled self-consciously until we were into the week before Christmas, and then finally decided to ask Lane. I knew that even if he thought I was silly he would try not to show it, and would probably end up convincing himself that it made perfect sense. [Read more…]