The Little Fir Tree – Margaret Wise Brown

- December 21, 2009

Who can resist a really good children’s Christmas Story?

Here’s one of our all time favorites:

The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown

The story starts out with a tiny seed blown through the air, out of the forest and into the field…where it dropped on the ground…the seasons past and the seed sprouted and took root and grew… Seven springs, summers, autumns and winters passed…the little tree felt lonely as it gazed upon the great dark forest nearby...it was growing alone in the big empty field.

One winter day a man came out and told the little tree it would be perfect for his boy to grow strong with.

He tenderly dug it up and brought it to his little lame boy, “And you will grow with my little boy who cannot come to you…You shall be his living tree.”

He became a Christmas tree that year…

Seasons passed, and when the snow fell over the still, quiet fields, the little fir tree would once again be carried to the bright lights of the Christmas Celebration…the boy and the tree were a little bigger… the lights seemed even brighter…

One year the little tree was waiting for the man to come…and he did not come…more snow fell….still the man did not come…There he was, a little fir tree in a big empty field…the big trees in the great dark forest were far way, the stars were far away, and without Christmas, the world seemed big and cold and empty…then in the white and snowy darkness he heard singing…far off, he heard the Christmas carols across the frozen fields.

The music grew louder and, joy of joys, it came nearer. And there, leading the dark band of carolers across the snow, with a lantern in his hand, came the little boy. He was WALKING, walking out to the tree near the forest…they came and decked the tree with the shining splendor of tinsel, and hung red berries and apples and cookies on his branches for the birds to eat…and they sang the songs they had sun before:

"Oh Christmas Tree,

Oh Christmas Tree!

Your greenest branches

Live for me."