A beautiful Christmas tree

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My father and I always went out together to cut the Christmas tree on the 23rd of December. Of course I've been thinking back on all those Christmases the two last years when I've been out on my own to find a tree.
I had the privilege of having a father who told me many stories from his childhood. Yesterday when I went out to get our tree I started to laugh when I remembered when he and his friend were to cut a tree for the school’s Christmas party. They were nine or ten years old — the friend was the son of a wealthy farmer and it was in his woods they went to look for a large and beautiful tree. They walked and walked, looked at trees and rejected trees. Finally they found a beautiful tree, they cut it down and started to drag it towards the school when they found an even larger and even more beautiful tree. Let's take this instead the friend said — and they did. So they started towards the school again when — yes, you guessed it.... they found the perfect tree. My father didn't remember how many trees they felled and left in the woods — at least four or five.

From "Christmas Holidays at Merryvale, The Merryvale Boys
by Alice Hale Burnett, illustrator Charles F. Lester