Our school had closed for the Christmas holidays and the neighborhood
children, including myself were anxious to see what we would receive
for Christmas gifts this year. As always we had made a list of
wants and desires.


Being about 11 or 12 years of age, I wanted more clothes and games then
toys. I took great delight in hearing the little kids speaking about Santa
coming and watching the excitement on their faces. I, of course was
"grown up" now and knew there was no Santa.


I still felt such wonder at seeing brightly lit trees, and was always wanting
to visit the neighborhood to see how the homes were decorated. The little
town took on a totally different personality when the holiday season rolled
around. Those who had a goodly sum of money seemed to be extra kind to
those with meager fare.


As a young girl, I noticed the happy attitude among folks and at the
nearly teen years, I noticed that there was more kindness & giving of time
and talents. Folks exchanged decorated cookies and nut breads ..neighbor
to neighbor. Hearty laughter & greetings were exchanged between town
folks. I loved the happiness shared at that time.


One afternoon as I was in the back yard of a neighbor, I saw a small
tree that had been sprayed with Silver paint. The branches were very
hard and stiff from the paint, but the bright Silver color really caught
my eye. The tree had obviously been tossed away by someone and it was
missing some branches. I guess it could be called a "Charlie Brown" type
Christmas tree, but I thought it was beautiful.


I asked my folks if I could have some ornaments to decorate it & put it
on the porch. I was told no, but I was determined to make some decorations
from colored paper and I found an old bucket and put bricks and stones
in it to hold the tree upright. After cutting out pictures from catalogs
and drawing ornaments on construction paper, I used the lead from a pencil
to punch a hole at the top of the ornament and found some string to tie
the paper to the branches .


My Step-Mom threw some stale pieces of bread outside for the birds to
find and I decided to tear pieces of bread & pushed the bread onto the
rather sharp needles of my tree.


The next day, I awakened to see a light snow had fallen and upon looking
at my tree, I noticed most of the paper ornaments were missing and some
were on the ground, but the best thing that I noticed was the prints of
birds feet all around that little crooked tree and not a crumb could be found.

It really made me feel like Christmas.


Ann Marie Fisher
© December 2007