STAFFORD, Va. — The family that decorated a lone white cedar tree along a busy parkway in southern Stafford last year dressed up the same tree to once again bring a dose of holiday joy to passing motorists.
“You have brought smiles to many drivers that make this route daily,” wrote a woman on a Stafford social media page. “A simple act has helped so many by putting that smile on their faces and thinking of their own Christmas memories and hope for tomorrow.”
Rob Hutchins, a government contractor and a U.S. Navy veteran who has lived in North Stafford since 2002, said it was never his intention to make the tree that lies just south of the Mountain View Road intersection on Centreport Parkway a popular local attraction when his family decorated it just after Thanksgiving last year.
“To have had it make so many others happy is such a huge bonus,” Hutchins said. “It’s like our little Stafford tree.”
Hutchins said the unusually positioned 8-foot-tall cedar first got the attention of his then 15-year-old daughter Alison when the family drove by the tree in 2021. Alison told her parents the tall evergreen growing oddly but proudly under a roadside guardrail looked remarkably like a Christmas tree.
“A couple of days went by and I was like, let’s go decorate this thing,” Hutchins said. “So we did, and it kind of blew up on (social media).”
Hutchins said when his family set out to decorate the tree for the first time, his wife Megan was thrilled about the project but was worried their roadside act of kindness might draw some attention.
“My wife was hanging out in the car because she was sure we’d be getting arrested for littering or something,” Hutchins said.
Although no county deputies or VDOT workers stopped to question the family’s good holiday intentions last year, many passing motorists who saw their work came back throughout the holiday season to spread their own good cheer.
“People stopped and put things on it,” Hutchins said. “People were stopping and taking pictures.”
Some fans of the family’s efforts even set a watchful eye on the display to ensure it kept the Christmas spirit going even during cold winter nights.
“I put battery-powered lights on it,” Hutchins said. “They changed the batteries out.”
The Christmas cedar survived the holidays, despite debris from passing cars and slush flung by snowplows. Hutchins and his family carefully gathered the ornaments, decorations and other gifts left by passing motorists and stored it at their home for months. They brought it all back recently to decorate the tree a second time.
“We brought new garland in, new lights and things like that,” Hutchins said. “We put all the stuff that people had put on there last year back up, the little tiny stockings with people’s names and all the stuff people had left for the tree. We put it all back.”
This year, Hutchins added a battery-powered star to top the white cedar, but had a slight mishap with a pair of pruning shears he purchased specifically to trim the cedar into a more classic Christmas-tree shape.
“I zip-tied the star to the top of the tree and when I go to cut the zip ties, I cut the power wire for the battery pack, so I have to put a new star on there,” Hutchins said. “First snip and the star went out.”
Hutchins and his family posted pictures of themselves decorating the tree on the same social media site they posted pictures on the year before. Within a few hours, the family photos drew more than 1,100 likes.
“People love it, it’s great,” Hutchins said. “I never did it for recognition or anything like that, I did it to make people happy. I had no idea it would blow up like that.”
Hutchins said he also expects a new star for the top of the tree will be added any day now.
“My wife already ordered it,” he said.
