Ever since I was a child I have loved the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree.

When I was young, we had an artificial tree and I always wanted a real tree. Since forging out on my own I always look forward to the tradition of finding the perfect real Christmas tree.

This year we decided to head to Coward Farm in Southwick as we had gotten our tree there the last couple of years with good luck. We wandered the rows of options: Douglas Fir, Frasier Fir, Blue Spruce and others and discounted some trees for having the wrong kind of needle, for being too empty, too skinny, lopsided or simply because. Shaun and Ryan came upon a well-formed tree and decided it was THE ONE.

Now, I thought it looked a bit short, but Morriss reminded me that all trees look smaller in the wild, so he chopped our tree down and strapped it to the roof and we brought the tree home.

As soon as we stood the tree up I knew we had made a grave mistake. This tree was…well, tiny! Disappointment washed over me as I realized this tree was at least a foot and a half shorter than what we usually bought. How could we have made such an error? I grew close to tears as debated getting a different, taller tree, but then discarded that idea because I had #1- just shelled out $42.50 for this tree and #2- I couldn’t in good conscience throw out a perfectly good tree that we had just chopped down.

There was some bickering between the adults as I threw a sulk and Morriss said it was a perfectly good tree. Meanwhile the girls were totally fine with our tiny tree. “I think it is cute.”, said one. “The size of the tree is NOT what Christmas is about.”, said the other.

I sat there in an uncharacteristic funk, pouting because my treasured tradition of getting a real Christmas tree and decorating it was sullied by the short stature of the tree. I took a deep breath and decided that maybe it would look better if it was raised up a bit. I head down to the basement and was met with a forgotten item that was just the right thing, a large wooden box that had been a dance prop for a holiday show years ago. Relegated to the basement, it had finally found a purpose again.

The box was the exact right size to lift the tree AND it was already made to look like a giant gift. The tree was still small, but it did look better showcased on this box. The girls agreed that the box was the right thing and assured me that they wanted to keep our tiny tree. With a resigned air, I declared that it was time to decorate the tree.

I announced that since we had more lights than tree this year, I was going to make sure it was the most sparkly and well lit tree we had ever had! String upon string of lights went on and as the tree was lit, so were my spirits. As the four of us put our treasured ornaments on the tree my mood lifted.  The girls took the ballerina ornaments and twirled up the hanger strings and let them go so that they would spin.  I carefully lifted a hand-blown glass orb that a best friend gave me in our first apartment. Morriss hung the ornaments we bought on a cruise years ago that we took right before Christmas.  The memories soothed the angst over the tiny tree and before my eyes the tree grew.

Suddenly this wasn’t a tiny tree at all.  It was a tree loaded, filled to overflowing with beautiful memories.  This tree was huge, the biggest tree ever in my history of trees.

I didn’t do a good job of telling my family about this and I hope that by writing it down, maybe someday they will read this and understand that I was so sorry that I blew a fit over the size of the tree.  This tree is the best tree ever. Our tiny tree bearing a full load of loving and fun memories.

Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope your tree is filled with as much love and memories.