It is very hard to keep the Christmas cheer when so much pain and tragedy has ocurred these days in this country.  However, our hearts seem to want to get a hold of a little bit of hope; I saw that over the weekend.

My husband and I went to a local antiques market over the weekend.  I was looking for the old-fashioned melted popcorn christmas ornaments – the ones I loved so much when I was a little kid.  Although I did not find any, I found much more that day.  Walking around the many vendors, I saw an older couple who were selling a few different things and had two tiny live christmas trees in pots on the floor, and next to their table.  If I was not looking down, I would have miss them.  Immediately, the tiniest one caught my eye (don’t know why since it looked more like a crooked Charlie Brown tree with one lonely small christmas ball on it), and I asked the old couple how much was it.  The older man smiled and told me that the little tree was $5.00 dollars.  I said, “I’ll take it.”

We kept walking around, and then, something unusual happened – I started noticing that people were looking at the little tree, and smiling.  In fact, they were smiling with their eyes as well.  I stopped at a table were there was an old-fashioned bear wreath on display; an old woman and whom may have been her son, greeted me.  They look at the little tree and smiled.  She kept smiling, and he said, “that is a Northern Spruce.”  I had forgotten to ask the man who sold me the tree what kind of tree it was, so I said, “Thank you for letting me know; I totally forgot to ask.  It looks like a Charlie Brown tree to me, a baby one.”  The man smiled, and went to grab a bag he had in one of the boxes  placed on the dirt floor.  While I was paying the older woman for the bear wreath, he came back and handed me a bag, saying, “Here is my contribution to your Charlie Brown tree.”  The bag had small ball ornaments.  I said, “thank you so much, may you have a wonderful Christmas.”  The woman smiled and offered her best wishes to us.  We said goodbye and kept walking, encountering the smiles and a few comments from strangers who happened to take a glimpse at the little Christmas tree I was carrying.  I found this very unusual.

I decided that such a special little tree deserved a better container where its roots could spread a bit more.  We kept walking around some more and we noticed the absence of planters; in fact, we didn’t see any other little live christmas trees.  When I was ready to give up, I saw an old milking container laying on the dirt, with a taped handwritten note – $3.  There it was, the perfect planter for the little tree.  I told the vendor that I wanted the container for the little tree.  He smiled and said, “There, it even has some old dirt inside, someone used it as a planter.”  I paid for it and we kept on walking.  An older couple who was resting nearby, next to an empty table smiled, looking at the little tree.  The man said, “what a cute little tree.”

In all this, my husband was having a good laugh, never thinking that my obsession for the little tree, would have caused so many smiles along the way …  We decided to keep growing it inside until it becomes so big that we will have to plant it outside.  After arriving home, we cleaned it up, placed it in its new planter, decorated it with the gifted ornaments, and wrote 2012 on the original christmas ball to keep track of its age.  We named it Little Tree.  Here is a picture of the little tree that made people smile.

Little Tree

Did it make you smile? 🙂