When I was a boy as Christmastime drew near my Dad would always go up in the woods and pick out a small evergreen tree to cut down for our Christmas tree. One year I went with him and much to the annoyance of my brothers picked the most ugly, scraggly, pine tree known to man to be our Christmas tree. My Dad, however, in his love for me cut it down and decorated it, as bad as it looked. Then after the new year arrived he took it outside and dropped it near the edge of the woods to decompose. I watched it all through the winter with a little sadness as its needles turned brown and fell off. I really wished it could have lived longer and grown taller.
