In the lore of Taylor Swift’s life , there are certain details and events that have come up over and over again over the years. Some are mentioned repeatedly in her lyrics, but stray from the focus in interviews (like some of the early events in her relationship with Joe Alwyn —the initial attraction while she was dating someone else, the bar date, the big rooftop talk), others are part of her mythology in song and interview form—like her childhood growing up on a Christmas tree farm.

In addition to being the subject of her 2019 Christmas song, this odd detail is also a very real part of Swift’s origin story . Before her family moved to Nashville so she could pursue her music career, Swift’s family actually lived on a Christmas tree farm in West Reading, Pennsylvania.

A decade before she released her song “Christmas Tree Farm,” Swift opened up about her experiences growing up on the farm in an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show . In the clip, which was re-released in time for the holiday season, Swift shared that she had a job at the farm: collecting praying mantises from Douglas fir trees.

“They lay eggs and form fruit on Douglas fir trees,” she explained. “That’s the tree they like to invade the most.”

“That’s when I came in,” she continued. “I would go around the Christmas tree all day and pick them and put them in a little basket … so people wouldn’t have bugs in the house.”

Swift has continued to reference her Christmas tree farm days over the years, including a 2014 interview with Esquire , in which she related the experience to her undying love for the Christmas season .

“It was a strange place to grow up,” she said. “But it cemented in me this unnatural level of excitement about fall and then the holiday season.”

And of course, there’s the song “Christmas Tree Farm” Swift released in 2019, along with a music video featuring actual footage from Swift’s family’s previous vacation home videos.