The Christmas Tree by Jill; Julie; Weber Salamon Page B

with the owners, who couldn’t be more delighted to have us come and take away this giant monster growing in their backyard before it falls and breaks through their roof.
    I always go to check it out, even though I know before I go this probably won’t be the one. But you have to go, because the one tree you overlook is sure to be it.
    No matter where I go, I’m always looking for the tree. Sometimes I take a helicopter; I can cover half a county in a day. But most often I’m in my car. As I drive along I keep one eye on the road, and one eye in the sky, hoping to see that tantalizing bit of green, that mysterious mixture of majesty and magic. Sometimes when I’ve been on the road too long I imagine the trees are waving to me, calling me over.
    For a minute I feel exhilarated. I’ve found it, I’ll think. But then I have to figure out how to reach that seductive treetop. A lot of times the trees are in somebody’s backyard in a suburb filled with one-way streets. You can spend an hour circling around trying to find this beautiful tree. Then, when you get there, you discover the bottom’s a mess. It’s jammed up against a wall or has been ruined by trimming.
    Other times, I may find the right tree—but that turns out to be only the beginning. This may sound peculiar, but sometimes the search for the Christmas tree feels a little like an old-fashioned courtship. A lot of people grow very attached to their trees. They love them. I’ve been amazed to discover the hold a tree can have on a person. I have learned to wait for the moment when, for one reason or another, the owners are ready to part with their trees—and that can take years.
    Why am I telling you this?
    Well, I’ve seen where the Christmas trees come from. I’ve seen them when they were glorious without a single ornament on them. But like most of us I’ve been so busy getting to where I’m going I haven’t had a lot of time to think about where I’ve been. It only hit me, how lucky I am, that day at Rockefeller Center, when I realized I would never look at the Christmas tree—or my life, for that matter—the same way again.
    Which brings me back to Sister Anthony.

Chapter One
    Brush Creek
    We’d flown over half of New Jersey, it felt like, and we were ready to call it a day. Not a single one of the trees I’d been told about had come even close to what we needed. I was barely paying attention by then, just enough to notice that this was one of the prettiest parts of the state. The landscape was lush and green, scarcely populated.
    My head was nodding and I was just about to doze off. Then something made me sit up and look hard at the ground. For a second I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep, I was so tired. But as my head cleared I knew I wasn’t dreaming. There it was! No question about it.
    This tree was a star. Everything about it said so: its rich color, the regal way it held itself—even where it stood, just apart from a whole group of evergreens, as if it was special.
    â€œCan you go down a little?” I shouted over the noise of the chopper.
    I held my breath. Usually closer inspection means disappointment. Half the branches are floppy, or the tree holds them too stiff.
    Not this tree. It seemed to have that improbable combination I was looking for—the size of King Kong, and the suppleness of Giselle.
    My eyes wandered over the surrounding terrain, and settled on a large, elegant building.
    â€œDo you know who owns this place?” I asked the pilot.
    He glanced at a map. “That’s what I thought,” he said.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked, impatiently.
    â€œNuns own it,” he said. “This is the Brush Creek convent.”
    â€œA convent?” I said. “Isn’t this a little plush?”
    The pilot was a New Jersey boy and knew his way around.
    â€œThis is no ordinary convent,” he began.
    I interrupted.