The Ugliest Christmas Tree
By
“Can we go now?”
The old man looked up from the page he was reading and peered over his glasses at his grand daughter standing in front of him. She was holding her pink fiber filled coat and a scarf.
“It’s dark outside. Can we go now?”
He looked out the window and, sure enough, the sun had set and it was dark out. He pulled up the sleeve of his sweater and then the sleeve of his blue shirt that was underneath to see his watch.
“Well, it is a bit early but,” he paused and looked at the little seven year old with the dark brown hair staring at him, waiting for the magic words she hoped to hear. He smiled. “Yeah, I think its time we can go.”
Caroline never hesitated, she tossed her coat and scarf onto her grandfather’s lap, turned and ran to the closet next to the apartment’s front door. “I’ll get your jacket,” she called back to him.
“Hurry, grandpa, they might be closed,” she said pulling him from the elevator and trying to drag him across the lobby to the old, glass paneled, iron front door. He did his best to keep up as she tugged at him.
“Oh, they’ll be open. The man promised he would save one for us; don’t you worry.”
“How far is it?” she questioned as he pulled the hood tight about her head and then wrapped the scarf around her neck.
“Just on the next block. Where that vacant lot is. You know the one, it’s next to where your mother does the wash.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been there lots of times.”
The door opened and a gust of cold, icy air hit them both. The old man felt it and hunched his shoulders against the blast. Caroline hardly noticed; she just pulled all the harder on his hand as they made their way down the street.
The white Christmas lights were interwoven in the barbed wire that topped the eight foot, temporary, chain link fence that blocked off the usually empty lot, that sat between the Bright Spot Laundry and Grey’s Tavern. Smoke and an occasional flame rose from an old oil drum that sat in the middle where two men were burning branches of trees to keep warm. The older of the two men turned to greet them as they came through the opening in the fence.
“Not much left but whatever you can find is $5.00. Got to empty everything out and be out of here in a couple of hours. Oh, It’s you,” he said recognizing Caroline’s grandfather. “I saved you one just as I said I would. It’s not much but it’s the size you said you could handle. I see you got a helper with you. It’s right over here.”
He went to a dark, back corner of the lot and pulled out a four foot spruce and brought it out to them. “As I said, it’s not much but it does have one good side. If you got it in a corner an moved it the right way it should work out pretty good. Wadda ya think?”
Grandpa looked at the sorry little tree and then turned to Caroline. “Think it will work?”
Before she could answer the man said: “It’s yours for two bucks.”
“Well,” said Caroline, as she looked and looked at the tree – first one way and then the other. “We’ve been making Christmas decorations in school all week and I think I have just enough. And I know where Momma put the tree stuff from last year. She brought the box with us when we came to live with you. Yeah, let’s take it. Boy, will Momma be surprised.”
Caroline’s grandfather gave her one of his over the glasses looks that said: “Yeah, ya got that right.” But he said nothing, just patted her on the head and then gave the man the $2.00.
“I’ll take the front part and you take the back,” she said.
“You sure you can handle that?”
“Of course,” came the authoritative reply of the seven year old.
As they walked along Caroline chatted away: “Do you think Daddy will make it home for Christmas?”
“It’s a long bus
ride to here from
“How come he had to go way over there?”
“There’s a store over there that was hiring for the holidays. Now days you have to go where the work is.”
“Oh.” The reply had a thoughtfulness to it as though she understood. After a moment she continued: “Do you think Jesus was born ugly?”
“What was that?”
“Do you think Jesus was born ugly? Daddy says all babies are born ugly, all messy and everything so I figure Jesus was born ugly too.”
“Oh, well, I never kinda thought of that but I guess, yeah, that would be true. Baby Jesus all messy and ugly, hum, well, yeah. Boy, you do come up with some good ones. Let me think a bit on that.”
The tree was decorated with a set of colored lights, chains made of bright colored paper rings straight from the classroom, a few Christmas decorations found in the old box in the back of the closet and tinsel from top to bottom that caught every light in the room.
As Caroline’s mother came in from working the Christmas Eve shift at the FoodTown she was greeted by a smiling cheering daughter. “Momma, Momma, come see what Grandpa and I did.” And she was ushered into the three room apartment to see the ugliest, sorriest, droopiest Christmas tree she had ever seen. Seeing the look on her mother’s face, Caroline turned on the tree lights and said: “It’s okay Momma, Grandpa said it’s like the baby Jesus, it may be born ugly but if you let its light shine it’s the prettiest tree there is.”