My favorite Christmas story involves moss, methamphetamine, and Mount Rainier. It begins with a van of people chugging their way through the 368 square miles of Mount Rainier National Park.

In my mind, the van resembles the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, even though I've been told numerous times that it does not, in fact, resemble the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, that the casual observer would dismiss it as just another beater van full of hikers or bird-watchers.

Scooby-Doo or no, the van practically hums with adventure. Its six passengers ignore the cold, rolling down windows to embrace the sharp smell of pine. They exclaim over the beauty of Rainier's towering green canopy. They exchange get-to-know-you small talk and bond over the two things they readily have in common: their affection for Christmas and methamphetamine. They take turns snorting it because "Ben didn't allow smoking in his van," remembers Anna, which is not her real name. "He liked to be mostly not high while driving." On these trips, Anna's job is making Thanksgivingish sandwiches out of Ritz crackers and a can of pumpkin pie filling for Ben—who, aside from being "mostly not high," is her boyfriend. "That was our Thanksgiving ritual," she says, adding, "He was a vegetarian, I'm pretty sure."

At some point along the park's 147 miles of deserted forest roads, Ben pulls over and everyone clambers out. This means that he's gotten a "gut feeling" about a good spot to hide the van.

"And then, you know, we'd smoke a little more, and the Christmas harvest would begin."

What, you ask, is Christmas harvest?

Imagine a group of twentysomethings on meth alighting into the forest like crazed elves, collecting pinecones, moss, boughs, and chopping down the occasional pine tree. Picture them bouncing between Mount Rainier National Park and a variety of state parks, camping without sleeping and smoking without eating—a days-long loop of gathering supplies and weaving Christmas wreaths, candleholders, and mantel pieces to sell to florists and Bellevue moms. This is Christmas harvest. "We were like any other group of friends going into the mountains collecting souvenirs," Anna says, "only instead of getting tired after a few hours and going home, we'd be at it for a while."

For obvious reasons, December is the busiest tree-cutting and bough-gathering month of the year—a time when any old fresh-cut thing decorated with moss, holly, and pinecone attachments can fetch $75 at farmers markets and florist shops. Slap a velveteen bow on that sucker and it'll go for $80.

"We tried to be respectful with our cuttings," she says, but some of the competition was "totally disrespectful—total tree rapers. And if you ran into them, they'd threaten to call you in for doing exactly what they were doing, only they were doing it 10 times worse."

The end result of a week's work, Anna says, was more money than anyone she knew made at their day jobs in a month. "The price of moss alone was worth more, per ounce, than the price of gold." Moss wasn't so much a Christmas crop as a year-round crop for some people—something florists would always buy to stuff in terrariums, or as the parsley-garnish equivalent for a floral centerpiece.

Anna has been clean for eight years now—she got clean before I met her through ex-raver friends—and isn't with Ben anymore, and she cringes whenever I bring Christmas harvest up. She doesn't like the picture it paints of that period of her life, mostly because she never considered herself an addict. "I thought of myself as an artist," she says, "who just happens to have a lot of cherished memories tied to being dirt broke, shoeless, and rooting around in the forest for Christmas decorations."

And she certainly doesn't look anything like the Faces of Meth campaign ads of our youth—her skin is clear, she has a bunch of teeth, and she could possibly be a hair model. Nevertheless, her brief stint harvesting natural resources from state and national parks evolved into my sentimental Christmas story, starring a pack of precocious meth addicts. And like the stars in any good story, I've always wanted to meet them.

There's no question that people are robbing the forest down to its last pair of needly knickers. Every season has its harvest: mushrooms, moss, salal, berries (which are permissible to pick), and ferns, to name a few. On December 1, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) sent out a press release stating that "Cutting 'Christmas' trees or boughs from state trust lands steals money from schools and can damage forests."

You see, the state is steward to roughly 2.1 million acres of forest, and part of the proceeds from timber is used to fund public schools and universities. Every year, the state leases sections of forest to select bidders, who buy the rights to go in and harvest boughs. When those trees are cut down or stripped of their boughs, "We lose out on 15 or so years of timber growth and natural habitat, as well as money for schools," says Jane Chavey, a spokeswoman for the DNR. With millions of acres to manage, it's difficult to gauge how widespread the theft is. Few people are caught, and when they are, they face only $250 in fines—and get to keep the trees they illegally harvested.

Nevertheless, parks staff sees the damage done. "Stripping boughs incorrectly kills the trees," says Chavey. "There's no way they can survive. It's a very real problem—the greens industry is huge."

I ask Chavey if they catch a lot of meth heads in the forest.

"Excuse me?" she says.

Meth heads, I repeat. Does the DNR catch many meth heads stealing from the forest?

"I don't know if we've identified that particular group of people as a problem."

Meth or no, there is a problem, which is why harvesting is tightly controlled in state parks—and altogether illegal in national parks like Mount Rainier. "All plant material is prohibited from being cut," confirms Chuck Young, the chief ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, but he adds that there are only 13 rangers patrolling 235,625 acres of national forest. "That doesn't stop people from doing it. Ever year we arrest a few salal hunters or tree cutters." The theft is considered a misdemeanor, carrying a $5,000 fine and as much as six months in jail. When I ask, Young tells me he hasn't heard of our national forests having a meth problem.

I call Anna to ask if she still knows any bough stealers she could put me in touch with. All I want to do is venture into the woods with them and see how they operate—what they take, where it goes, how much it sells for, what Christmas songs they whistle while they work—but the more I press her for information, the less she feels like talking about it. When I ask if she'd take me to Packwood or Bellevue to talk with some of the florists she used to sell decorations to, she flatly tells me that they've gone out of business. When I ask her if she still knows any tree stealers she can put me in touch with, she is offended by the question, saying she never stole trees. "I'm telling you I don't want to do this," Anna says before telling me that I've embellished the particulars and that I "romanticize meth too much."

It's true that after years of telling this story to friends, and thinking of the story every time I see Mount Rainier this time of year—a mountain covered in foraging meth heads covered in fog—I have no way of knowing which details are true and which details are superimposed by my imagination. Eventually, Anna gives up a few names and numbers of people she used to know so I can corroborate the story. But all the numbers are wrong or disconnected. I try Facebook, but my two queries—"I know this might sound rude but are you by chance a recreational meth user who also enjoys holiday decorating?"—remain unanswered.