The Little Bent Tree

It was the big night at the East Mississippi Christmas Tree Farm Christmas Festival. Cool December air nipped at the visitors’ red noses as they sang Christmas Carols and drank hot chocolate. Families from all around Mississippi flocked to the moon-lit countryside to cut down their own Christmas tree.  There were Red Cedars, Virginia Pines, Leyland Cypresses and Frasier Firs.  Each tree had waited a whole year for this night. It was the night when they’d  finally get to fulfill their purpose and finally become a Christmas tree.  Smoke from the bonfire drifted across the open field.  A full moon illuminated the trees, making them look like sentinels guarding the Christmas season. One by one, the families cut their trees, leaving nothing but stumps and memories behind.

On a hill by himself, one tree watched the other trees being hauled off to their final destinations.  The little bent tree was a short, three-foot Virginia Pine with a bent trunk.  One customer had asked if he had the tree version of scoliosis. The comment had made the little bent tree’s thin branches droop even more.  The sadness in his heart of pine caused his needles to fall like tears as he watched his family being carried away.

The little bent tree wanted nothing more than to be a Christmas Tree.  And he knew that he would never be one.

He watched as the crowds left and the last embers of the fire burn out.  As the moon set, darkness covered the field like a blanket. If a Christmas tree’s dream dies and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The little bent tree knew the answer. Yes.  Yes, it does.

The owner’s little boy came out of their house with a lantern.  Although it was well past the eleven-year-old’s bedtime, he liked sneak out and walk through the fields at night to see deer grazing.  He skipped along the frost-covered grass while holding his lantern. It’s bluish light lit the ground ahead, illuminating the stumps and casting cross-like shadows across the countryside.   He paused and heard a rustle to the right.  The little boy turned east and headed up a small hill.

There his lantern illuminated a sad looking tree. Short and bent, the little boy knew why it had not been chosen. His dad would come out tomorrow and cut the tree down for the next bonfire.  But as the little boy held up his lantern, he felt sorry for the little tree.  Feeling the brace on his own back, he knew what it was like to be considered different.  He smiled and said, “Don’t worry little tree. I know just what we’re going to do.”

The little boy returned thirty minutes with a box.  Inside it was three strings of battery-powered lights, four strings of gold beads and two-dozen beautiful red balls.  The little boy carefully decorated the bent tree and soon, like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, it was spectacular.  As he finished, a bright star rose over the horizon, rising to right over the top of the tree.  It looked like it had been chosen to be the little bent tree’s personal star.

The little boy smiled and said, “Merry Christmas little bent tree.”

The little bent tree had never stood taller.

The next morning, the tree farmer came out with his chainsaw.  He rode his four-wheeler across the field and up a small hill. There he stopped, and was stunned to find a beautifully decorated Virginia Pine on the hill’s crest. He put his chainsaw back in the four-wheeler and wiped his eyes.

As he saw his son playing off in the distance, the tree farmer realized, Christmas didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to be from the heart.  And on that special Christmas, a little bent tree’s dream came true.

He got to be a Christmas Tree.