Helen’s Pretty Tree

 Do you have a tree?  I only have a teeny, tiny ceramic one, but when I look at others, I have a wanting deep within for a small special one with pretty lights.  We always had a real one growing up.  Daddy took the sharp ax over his shoulder, and the sisters walked with him down the hills toward Dry Creek.   Momma’s words trailed after us, “get a small one”.  She knew my Daddy well.  He always dreamed, and his dreams were big.  The tree was located in a fence row, where it had hidden and grown tall.  It was always a bigger one.  Daddy dragged the monster back to our small living room.  If Momma could convince him, it was chopped again farther up so he could get it in the small 12 by 12 living room.  Some years we had lights, lean years we did not have any.  My Mother hated clutter and threw things away.  Lights could not be kept a year unless one of the Sisters climbed up in the attic and stored them.  The decorations were made of popcorn and pretty paper.  We usually had tin foil icicles from the Dime Store in Green Forest and maybe a can of spray-on snow.  Momma hated that “snow” as we wanted to make snow scenes on the windows and it adhered like gorilla glue.  I’m happy my Daddy had big dreams and my Momma knew the real world.  I was able to see a wide perspective of the way things were and how things could be if only I could dream and believe.