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By Tom Anselm  

The smattering of snow I see as I look outside reminds me that

I never did tell you of the conclusions we came to concerning the 2011 Anselm Family Christmas decorating dilemma. You may recall that I was all a’twitter, although I do not “tweet”, over whether or not we were going to go with a real tree versus the artificial balsam that was tucked safely in the basement.

Or so we thought. (More on that later). Also in the discussion was whether or not to switch the outside lights from all white to the good ole’ fashioned multicolor C-9’s.

Well, to make a long story very short, we did both, had a great time with two of the little ones running through the local tree lot pretending there was a squirrel in the bigger bushes, and  getting a bunch of new sets of red, green, blue and yellow bulbs from Handyman Hardware.

It made for spirited conversation about dear old Mom and Dad’s return to tradition. And to be honest, the big fir in the family room looked as good as or better than the guy we had in the box.

Which brings me to the rest of this story. You see, we offered to donate that tree to a family in the area that didn’t have one. So son Tim and I hauled it over to the lady’s house, bid her “Merry Christmas” and went home. About twenty minutes later, she calls and says, “Hi, you brought us a tree? Thanks so much. But there is a problem.” What kind of problem, says I.

“Well, you see, the top portion is missing.”Huh? I completely forgot that we put the top in a bag last year, since it was impossible to get the whole thing back in the box. You know how that goes. I give great props to people who pack stuff. I can never rebox something the way they get it, so tight and nice.

Anyway. Okay, no problem, says I. I’ll get it over to you later today. Which would have been fine, except that I couldn’t find it. Anywhere. Not in the space above the garage, not in the basement. We had just totally pulled everything off of shelves and out of the laundry room downstairs not a week before, and there was nary a trace of a bag with the top of a tree inside. This was a quandary, a conundrum. A true life mystery.

I called the lady back and sheepishly shared this bad news. She was very understanding, although I could detect a tinge of disappointment in her voice.

With promises of finding it, somewhere, I hung up, then emailed the coordinator of our St. Vincent de Paul Society outreach efforts. After Christy stopped laughing, she said she would put out the word that we were in search of a tree top. Now, I know that Christmas miracles come in all shapes and sizes. This one arrived in the form of the top of a tree that someone had to offer as a replacement part for my three-fourth of a fir now standing forlornly in the living room of its new owner. When Christy took it over to the lady’s house, she noticed that the tree didn’t look all that bad, since the recipient had molded the branches into a conical form. We later laughed that all she really needed was an angel with a Triple XL dress size.

As I sit here, I still wonder at how sometimes things just seem to work out. I trust that the family who got their tree, albeit from two sources, had a good Christmas. I know ours was enhanced by that story, and the fact that we are so blessed that we could afford to buy a real tree and new lights, and not have to worry about how to explain to young children the possibility of a Christmas morning without a tree. But the crazy part of the story is this. Somewhere in this house is a treetop, waiting to be discovered.