The sun was setting and the farm would be closing soon. I dressed our three daughters quickly as my husband started the car. Cutting down our own Christmas tree had been a family tradition.
As we walked through the rows of trees, my youngest daughter Kimberly shouted excitedly, "There it is, the perfect tree!" The other two agreed. My husband and I looked at each other puzzled. It was misshapen and pine needles were missing here and there.
We tried to talk our daughters into changing their minds, but failed. We had to tie the tree to the top of our car and headed home. As we reached our house, Heather jumped out first. Suddenly she shouted, "The tree isn't there!" We thought she was kidding. However, it wasn't there.
The girls were so sad. "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 say no to. We had no choice but to go back and find that tree.
About five minutes into our drive, we saw our tree on the side of the road. Clearly it had been run over by a truck and a big part of it had fallen 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. By the time we were done, I had to admit, it didn't look sad after all. "This is the best tree we ever had. It's perfect!" my second daughter Samantha said excitedly. My husband and I couldn't have agreed more!
Now we always recall that little broken tree! Year by year, we tell the story of that very special Christmas almost twenty-five years ago.
