THE CHRISTMAS TREE CONFLICT
By Jim Davis

The first Christmas Jane and I spent as husband and wife, we had an interesting little conflict. It wasn’t one that involved any hard feelings or such. It was about our Christmas tree.

It was a beautiful little tree. A little under five feet tall. We had bought it at the Whiteway Variety Store. We shopped for it together, found the decorations for it and decorated it together. It was just right for our little apartment. We loved it. But we had a problem.

We were supposed to spend Christmas with my family in South Georgia that year, which meant that the little tree would be home all by itself in Tennessee. Well, actually it wouldn’t, because we didn’t want to go away and leave it to dry out and become a fire hazard. So, it looked like the only thing to do was to take it down and throw it out.

Then, one of us had a brainstorm. Why not take it back to the store where we bought it and give it to them to either give away or sell again? It was only about three days before Christmas, and all the “good” trees had been picked over. We figured that someone would probably wonder how a little tree that pretty was still available.

When we took the tree back to the store, we didn’t have any problem getting them to take it back since we weren’t trying to get a refund. They put it back out with the other few trees they had, and we drove away. We didn’t stay away, though.

We went back in about an hour, and the little tree was already gone. We never knew who got the little tree, but we have always had a special memory from that experience. We still think about it and wonder what the little Christmas tree’s second family was like.