Before Christmas, Daddy and Momma and our neighbors decided to go down to the woods to find a Christmas tree.   Daddy hooked the tractor up to a trailer and we all jumped inside.   We rode down the road to my Grandma's and then back down the lane into the woods.

The air smelled so good.   Just like pine trees.   It was so cold that when I breathed, I could see my breath like smoke in front of my mouth.

When we got out of the trailer, the snow was so deep I could hardly walk through it.   Everyone walked ahead of me and I yelled, "Wait for me."

We found lots of good trees, but we kept looking because momma said, "It has to be the perfect tree.   It has to be tall enough to touch the ceiling in the living room."

Finally, Momma saw the tree she wanted.   "I think this one IS the perfect tree," she said.

Daddy knelt down and brushed the snow away from the trunk of the tree so he could saw it off.   Just then, Momma shook the snow off the tree to get a better look at the branches.

The snow fell off the tree and right down Daddy's neck.   Everyone laughed and laughed, but I don't think Daddy thought it was very funny.   He grabbed Momma and pulled her down into a snow bank and washed her face with snow.   Everyone laughed and laughed some more--even Momma.

Daddy and the neighbors got their trees cut and we started back to the tractor and trailer.   When we got back and they loaded the trees into the trailer, Momma got out a silver tube filled with hot coffee. I was cold and started whining.   They got a blanket out of the trailer and they put me in the middle of it.   Then, with them each holding a corner and an edge on the blanket, they lifted and snapped it and tossed me high up into the air.   Over and over they tossed me up into the air until I stopped crying and started laughing.

When we got home, Daddy hauled our tree into the living room.   When he tried to set it up in the corner, it was way too tall for the room and the top of the tree bent way over.   Daddy had a grouchy face and had to haul the tree out and cut some more off the bottom of the trunk.

Momma got a big bucket to set the tree in and filled it with water.   Daddy set the tree in the middle of the bucket and tightened screws on each side of the bucket to hold the tree in place.   The top of the tree just barely touched the ceiling.

"It is the perfect height," said Momma.

"My job is done," Daddy said and he sat down and picked up the newspaper to read.

Momma started putting lights on the tree and she and I hung the glass balls and other decorations on it.   My favorite decoration was a small blue ball with the moon and stars painted on it.   I also really liked the bubble lights we had on the tree.   They were shaped kind of like candles, only in red and yellow and green and when they got warmed up, bubbles went up and down inside of the glass stems.

When we were all done, Momma took a box of silver icicles and one-by-one, she placed them on the ends of all the branches.

Then Momma took a white sheet and put in under the tree to cover up the bucket.   It looked just like a snow drift had formed under the tree.

Daddy looked up and said, "It looks real pretty," and Momma smiled.

I laid down under the tree and looked up through the branches at all the glass balls with the lights reflecting off them.

It was the perfect tree!