The Perfect Tree

First Place, children's essays

Merit Willey |

12/18/2008 - 12/19/08

One year, a week before Christmas, two trucks overturned on their way from Colorado to Santa Fe. They had been carrying hundreds of Christmas trees — all of which were lost. What that meant was that there would be a Christmas tree shortage in Santa Fe that year.

My father was coming home from a business trip on the 21st of December, and we were waiting for him so we could all buy a Christmas tree together like we did every year. The minute Dad arrived on our small farm in the desert, we helped him unpack
his bags, and then he, my mother, my brother and I piled into our white Toyota Landcruiser and headed toward downtown Santa Fe.

When we got into town we drove eagerly to the place we normally bought our Christmas tree, but when we got to the lot, all we found was a sickly group of trees that amounted to little more than a bunch of bent sticks with large cavities in their few withered branches.

Discouraged, we left and drove to another lot on the Old Santa Fe Trail, but it proved not to be much better.

"Why aren't there any trees?" my father asked the man who worked there. The man told him about the accident. My father felt sorry for all the people who hadn't bought a Christmas tree yet — and that included us.

There was a long pause. Then Dad said, "Thank you," and we all solemnly got back into the car.

My parents whispered something to one another, and then my mother said brightly, "Let's go into the arroyo and cut down a tree from there. It'll be fun! That's how people did it in the olden days."

Once back at home, my father grabbed an ax and all four of us headed down the hill behind our house to look for a Christmas tree in the wide-open desert. There were a lot of trees — piñon, juniper, and even the rare aspen — but none of them looked like Christmas trees. An hour went by as we trudged up and down hills and through the sandy arroyo.

"How about this one?" my father asked cautiously, pointing at a puffy piñon. We all stared at it for a long time, until my brother finally exclaimed, "But it's round!" My mother just shook her head and agreed. "They're all kind of round, aren't they?"

My father sighed. "I guess we should go back to town," he said. "Maybe those trees weren't so bad. It would be like having a 'Charlie Brown' Christmas tree. We could make it beautiful with ornaments."

So we headed back to the car. Again.

We were all in the car feeling extremely sad. Then we came to a nursery and saw a sign that read "LIVE CHRISTMAS TREES." My mother and father looked at each other in a way that asked, "Why didn't we think of that?"

We drove in the direction of the arrow on the sign. When we got to the place where they were selling the potted trees, the first one we saw was the perfect Christmas tree. It was fat and pointed and as tall as Dad; there were no branches missing, and it had a perfect top for a star. We bought it right then and there. It was the most beautiful tree we ever had, and that Christmas was the best ever!

Later on that week, after the holiday had passed, we planted that Christmas tree. It's grown taller than the house and still reminds us of that wonderful Christmas when we almost didn't have a tree at all.