Last night I remembered a specific visit to the Christmas Tree Genie. We always went back to the Christmas tree farm to pick up our tree on the first or second weekend in December. The Christmas Tree Genie would have our tree cut and waiting for us. This one year that I am remembering, the Genie had done some trimming of a very large tree he had cut down for someone else and a little tree-shaped top was sitting off to the side of where the other trees were waiting to be picked up. Emma immediately spied the little tree and approached the Genie. "Do you think I could have that little tree?" she asked. He explained to her that it was only the top of a much bigger tree. But she said, "That's okay. I think it will make a beautiful tree for me."
He gladly gave her the tree top and tied it to the roof with our other tree. When we got home we spent much more time trying to figure out how to make her little tree stand up than we did making our big tree stand up. When we finished decorating our big tree she set about decorating her own tree with some small ornaments we had gotten in an Advent calendar and with some ornaments that she sat down and made herself.
I think of this as another quintessential Emma story. What others would throw away, she would cherish. She found beauty in places others never even bothered to look. I am trying to look at the world through those eyes now, looking for beauty in unexpected places and taking time to appreciate life's smallest moments.
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