The Most Beautiful Tree in the World
by Stephanie Reis '20

We travel through the snow
In our little, cramped car
We are all together
Listening to the radio station
The one that plays Christmas music

We finally arrive at the tree farm
We look for the most ideal tree
But there was only one tree left
See, we came to the tree farm late this year
And all the biggest, strongest trees were taken

Now there was only one left
It was tiny and scrawny
It had barely any pine needles left on it
It looked sickly
It looked like it could barely hold any ornaments

I looked at my parents
Was this really the tree we were going to buy
My parents sighed
My little brother than exclaimed
It’s wonderful, the most beautiful tree I have ever seen

We all looked at him
What was he thinking?
Beautiful, it was sickly
How could he believe it was beautiful?
Then I noticed my parents looking at it

They stared at the tree for a minute
Then they looked up from the tree
And said you know what
It is beautiful
I did not understand

Then I saw it
I realized where I was
I was in a tree farm
Snow was falling all around me
I was with my family

We were celebrating a tradition
A special tradition we had since I was born
A Christmas tradition
And it did not matter what happened
Because I was with my family, people who I loved

It did not matter what tree we bought
Or how it looked
All that mattered was the love we gave it
And how we speared our Christmas tradition to the tree

So we bought that tiny tree
And we put it in our trunk
We brought it home and decorated it
We made it special
We made it our own
And we knew one thing

The tree
The tiny tree
The tiny, sickly tree
The one that could barely hold an ornament

The tree was Christmas
The tree was ours
The tree was the most beautiful tree in the world