Ingenuous

Naive and trusting; young (adj.)

Springtime for the Christmas tree farmer is a strange time. Roaming down the rows of young pine trees in shirtsleeves, nursing them up to be cut down down by Christmas time, inspires a particular feeling in him. He sees that the trees are as tall as the children who dance around them come winter; that they are miniatures of the traditional adult pines, just as the children are miniatures of their parents. He becomes acutely aware that he survives in the spring from the December harvest sales. So he walks anxiously among the baby trees, knowing that the youthfulness and traditions of families feeds his own. He realizes that as long as people continue to believe in plastic angels with light bulbs that you plug in and old ornaments that get passed down in boxes from one generation to the next, as long as children continue to believe that a fat man slides down their chimneys if they've been good and leaves presents under the thick green branches of their Christmas tree, as long as fathers get that twinkle in their eyes when they see their children basking in the same naive traditions their fathers raised them with--as long as each of these persist the farmer knows that he will have a good Christmas with his family. If he raises his trees well and sells them he knows that his children will be able to leave Santa cookies and milk before they go to bed on Christmas eve with hope shining in their faces, and that bliss will reign in his farmer's heart because of it.