Jacob's Christmas Tree

At the beginning of each December since 1966, there has been a “Festival of Trees” charitable event in Atlanta that benefits Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  For the first three weeks of December, Atlantans have gathered to see dozens of designer trees and wreaths that are display and many of which that are for sale. One of the most treasured traditions are the “Honor Trees”.  These are trees that companies and individuals sponsor in honor of a child who is or has been a patient at CHOA. In 2005, Jacob was selected to be honored in such a way.

I feel terrible that I do not remember the person or the company that sponsored Jacob, but we have always been appreciative that they chose him. They contacted us/Jacob and interviewed him to see what his interests were.  As you may see in the tree behind us in the picture, the tree was festooned with Jacob’s love for music and musical theater. There were the normal twinkling lights, shiny baubles, garlands, and sprays of glittering sprigs.  But the main decorations were musical note ornaments and various masks signifying the theatre arts. It was a magnificent and gorgeous tree.

After the event was over, unbeknownst to us, the tree was shrink wrapped and delivered to our front door. We already had our two Christmas trees lit up and decorated. Despite the beauty of this tree, we weren’t sure what to do with it.  It was so elegant …. and so BIG!  And to my horror, it was not a pre-lit tree! (I found out that that was against the decorating rules of the Festival).  I knew that we would not be able to duplicate the majesty of the original artist’s work in subsequent years. AND I WAS NOT ABOUT TO STRING A THOUSAND LIGHTS ON THAT TREE EACH YEAR!  So, we were faced with quite a conundrum…what to do with this unexpected and complicated gift?

Our solution was to harvest the ornaments and baubles and integrate them on our existing trees.  The large masks really didn’t fit the homey look of our trees that were decorated by years of Christmas art created by our three children, many with their cherubic faces adorning the ornament.  But I didn’t want to just discard such unusual and extravagant decorations. So, I decided that would I keep one of the masks and it has been lovingly displayed on my office desk since that year (see picture).

After we finished our ornament harvesting, the next question was, “What are we going to do with this large and beautiful artificial (have I mentioned that it was not pre-lit?) Christmas tree?” It would have been a shameful sin to throw a once used 8-foot tree that was flush with branches.

As I contemplated on the predicament at my breakfast table, I gazed onto our backyard full of pine trees, magnolia trees, and a few oak trees at various heights.  Then I came up with an idea … and I’m dangerous when I have ideas.

Why not ‘plant’ the artificial tree among all the other trees in our backyard? 

So I shared my brilliant idea with Karen and the kids.  They were not as enthralled as I was about my ‘brilliant’ idea.  They said, “Richard, you wouldn’t!  Dad, please, don’t!  Pops, you can’t!”  

But, ‘can’t’ isn’t in my vocabulary, so I did!

For years no one knew the difference.  The artificial tree gradually gathered leaves and pine needles on it to camouflage its secret. It was our family’s secret … a source of smiles … and rolls of eyes at what Dad had done, until …..

One day while I was away on one of my weekly business trips, Karen heard a large thud in the backyard.  She got up to see what was the cause of such a racket and saw that one of our large pine trees had snapped off around six feet from the ground and had crashed in our backyard, destroying a section of our back fence. (We are so thankful it didn't fall onto the house!). She called a tree service to come out to remove the offending tree.

A day or two later, the service company arrived to survey the job. In a few minutes, the man composing the estimate came to our backdoor with a quizzical look on his face.  And he asked, …

“Ummm, are you aware that you have an artificial Christmas tree in your backyard?”

I chuckled and acknowledged its presence.  His expression then changed from wondering if we knew about this unusual fact to a look of puzzlement as to who was this crazy person he was about to do some work for. After an embarrassed explanation, he agreed to remove that tree along with the fallen pine tree.

We have since moved away from that wonderful home in Marietta, full of its great memories. Now, with each Christmas, when we decorate our tree, we still hang a few of those ornaments from Jacob’s Christmas tree.  And, each time, it brings a smile of remembering him and that ‘planted’ artificial tree in our backyard.