The Tree Left Behind: a Tale of Christmas

Around Thanksgiving, in 2013, after uploading works to Kindle for roughly a year, my mother suggested I write about the Christmas, back in the early 1960's, when people driving by our house honked their approval at the tree we had on display in the living room picture window. We always wondered how they would have reacted if they had known that the tree was so scrawny, especially at the base, that our tree stand would not hold it in place. My mother had to tie the tree in place by attaching it to the picture window curtain rod with twine. Then, she covered the twine with a ribbon.

She added her belief that there would be further poignancy to the story if I told the story from the viewpoint of the tree itself.

I was intrigued with the concept and, as I was a child at the time, I had to partly rely on her memories to reconstruct the event. Given we had started at Thanksgiving, there wasn't enough time to finish the story by that Christmas. For that reason, we decided to complete our Christmas fable in 2014.

Unfortunately, my mother suffered health reversals and she passed away on September 2, 2014.

Using her recollections as a framework, I have now written the story of our tree, titled: THE TREE LEFT BEHIND, and have made it available for 2015.

That year of our tree was a lean period for us. I imagine our lack of financial resources bounded us stronger than if we had been more affluent. I only know we enjoyed a loving household together and I hope you see my mother, Kathleen Keating Jackson, as the warm, thoughtful, resourceful woman she was.

I dedicate this story to her memory.

Sincerely,

G.M. Jackson III