Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all thirty feet tall.
~Larry Wilde
It was later than I had realized. The sun was beginning to set and the farm would be closing shortly. I bundled up our three daughters quickly as my husband warmed up the van. We arrived at the farm with just fifteen minutes to pick out a tree and cut it down.
Cutting down our own Christmas tree had been a family tradition from the time my husband and I were newlyweds. As our family grew, so did our excitement for going on our annual adventure to find the perfect tree.
As we walked through the rows of trees, my youngest daughter Kimberly piped excitedly, “There it is, the perfect tree!” My two other daughters agreed in unison, “Yes, that’s the one!” My husband and I looked at each other puzzled. We were surprised the girls thought that straggly little tree was perfect. Its branches were misshapen and the trunk was visible through the spots where there were no pine needles.
We tried to coax our daughters into changing their minds by showing them what we thought were better trees. We soon realized there was no changing their minds. With the clock ticking toward closing time, we had no choice; the sad little tree would be ours.
We tied the tree to the roof of our van and headed home. As we slowly drove through the whirling snow, we joyfully sang Christmas songs until we reached our front door. My oldest daughter, Heather, hopped out of the van first. With eyes wider than saucers, she announced, “The tree isn’t on top of the van!” We thought she was kidding, but no, the tree wasn’t there. It must have fallen off along Route 537 during our chorus of Christmas songs.
The girls were so disappointed. We had our entire evening planned around decorating the tree. Hot cocoa, more Christmas caroling, and reading the book The Night Before Christmas were on our agenda. “We’ll get another tree tomorrow,” I said, secretly hoping the new tree would be prettier. But the girls gave us the look that no parent can resist, complete with pouting and quivering lower lips. There was only one thing to do — backtrack and find that tree.
About five minutes into our drive, our headlights shone on our tree off to the side of the road. “There it is!” we all shouted together. As we got closer, it was apparent that it had been run over by something big, perhaps a truck. As my husband and I lifted the tree, we saw that a big portion of the tree was ripped off, but we took our little broken tree home anyway.
Once at home, we all agreed that the flat broken side would go up against the wall. That night, as we decorated our tree, something magical happened. We didn’t realize it at the time but we were making a very special family memory. By the time we were done, I had to admit, it didn’t look sad after all. My daughters all agreed that the tree was beautiful. “This is the best tree we ever had. It’s perfect!” my daughter Samantha said with excitement. My husband and I couldn’t have agreed more!
Now as Christmases come and go and we gather around our Christmas tree, we always say, “This is one of the prettiest trees we’ve ever had!” Then we reminisce about our little broken tree! One by one, we chime in and tell the story of that very special Christmas almost twenty-five years ago.
~Dorann Weber
