On this episode of Our American Stories, every December, families chase the idea of a perfect Christmas tree. Sometimes you find it standing in a snowy field. Sometimes you find it in a grocery-store parking lot when the sun’s already down, and the good ones are gone. Jim Johnson knows that chase better than most. His search took him through freezing Minnesota afternoons, crowded tree farms, and a few humbling lessons about real trees, fake trees, and the fragile rituals we build around the holidays. What he discovers along the way says as much about American Christmas traditions as it does about balsam vs. Fraser fir, and why this simple hunt for a tree still pulls us out into the cold every year.

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