One cold morning a couple weeks before Christmas, a whole load of Christmas trees arrived on the docks of Hamilton. There were small ones, large ones and absolutely humungus ones. They were all going to be sent to all the stores for sale. They were all so beautiful and full all except one, it was so small and scrawny and its few branches were hanging down. It was the puniest tree anybody had ever seen. When the trees got to the stores they would all be priced and then ready to be sold.

The MarketPlace on Church Street known for its wonderful trees, got the little puny tree. The men stacked all the trees up against the walls so that they could be priced. The men came to where the little scrawny tree stood and laughed. "What kind of a tree is that?'' said one man. The little tree heard the men laughing and began to cry. All his branches started to wither and fall off his little thin body.

Before he knew it hew as being swept up off the ground and put into a small and rather squishy brown box. As he was being put in the box he heard a man say "we couldn't possibly sell that puny tree, no one in their right mind would buy it. So the poor little tree just sat in the box crying and waiting to be thrown away in the dumpster. All week the poor little tree laid in his box listening to all the happy families picking out their Christmas trees. One by one all the trees were sold to families to help them celebrate their Christmas. The poor little tree hoped and hoped that somebody would take him out of that horrible claustrophobic box.

It was almost Christmas and the little tree had just about given up home. But one day on December 24th, a little girl named Zalia Smith came into the MarketPlace where all the trees had been put up for sale. When she walked into the place where they had been selling the trees, she nearly floated away in a river of tears. She was so sad the room was deserted with just the needles that had fallen off the trees and the little brown box where the little tree lay. A man saw the little girl crying and went over to comfort her. When he approached her he asked her what was wrong. She told him this story.

"My name is Zalia Smith. I live with my mother, father and six brothers and sisters on Bermudiana Road in Pembroke. My family has never celebrated Christmas with a Christmas tree, because we are so poor and we never get but one present each. We enjoy our present but there is no Christmas joy in our house at Christmas because we have never had a Christmas tree in our house. I am the youngest of the children. I am seven years old. I've been saving up my money ever since I was four years of age to buy my family a Christmas tree, and now that I have enough money to buy a tree, there's none left anywhere.'' She started to cry again.

"Don't cry'' said the man. Zalia looked up and wiped her tear stained eyes.

Then her eyes lit up like Christmas. She saw the little trees branches poking up out of the little brown box. Zalia ran over to the box and picked the little tree up out of the box and hugged it and cried again. This time with happiness. She said to the man, "How much is this wonderful tree?'' He told her that the tree was not for sale and that they put it in the box because it was so little and branches. If they left it out the store would be laughed at and the wonderful compliments about their full and beautiful trees would no longer be true.

Zalia hung her head with sadness and slowly started to walk out the door.

"Wait,'' said the man. "I'll give you the tree but you mustn't tell anybody where it came from.'' "Thank you again,'' she said, as she grabbed the tree and scurried out the door. After Zalia came from the MarketPlace she went to the Annex to buy some decorations for the tree. When she got to her small home on Bermudiana Road in Pembroke she called her whole family to the living room.

Zalia told her family that she had a surprise for them. Her whole family hurried into the living room to see her surprise. When everyone was settled, Zalia pulled out the Christmas tree from behind her back. Zalia was so happy because when she showed her family the tree, they all had a large grin on their faces especially her mother and father. She knew that they were proud of her.

That night, the Smith family stayed up rather late decorating and admiring the little tree. The next morning (Christmas Day), Zalia went to the room where the Christmas tree stood. She couldn't believe her eyes. The tree had grown and looked so full. It was the most beautiful tree on Bermudiana road.

Everyone would come to see the beautiful tree.

Christmas was soon over. A couple days later all the people in Pembroke were throwing out their Christmas tree. Everyone except the Smith family. They kept their tree all year round. The wonderful tree grew taller and taller in Zalia's room and it never withered away. Each Christmas for three years the Christmas tree kept a home at the Smith family house. It still stayed nice and full. It stayed in the Smith family house from generation to generation and to this day it remains with the Smith family. It is probably the most beautiful and full tree that anybody in Bermuda has ever seen.

The moral of the story is: Little things need love in order to become big and beautiful things.

CHRISTMAS TREES -- Seen after arriving in Bermuda.