The Dream Tree

Is there anyone out there in Blogland that is just dying to get out there and do some serious Christmas shopping?

WHAT? HAS SHE GONE MAD?

Oh, don't get your panties in a bind. I'm serious. This year is the first year in ages that I'm really in the Christmas spirit. And I'm going to do something totally different this year.

I'm going to buy a new tree.

Yep, but it's not because our old tree can't hold up another year and it's not that I have millions of extra dollars and can afford it. It's a symbol and I'll tell you why.

My daughter came out into the living room tonight where I was playing in email and she plopped down on the sofa.

"This is going to be the worse Christmas ever," she said. "I don't have any money at all and I just wish it would never get here."

I listened to her complain about having one night at work because of going to nursing school and how upset she was that she could barely give me or the rest of the family anything for Christmas, which was quite the opposite of past years. This is a girl that no matter what, there'd be presents up the ying-yang for me under the tree. I'm not one that needs presents, but she's one who feels the need to give them.

After she was finished, I said, "You know, this is the way I'd like Christmas to be. I don't want it to be about gifts. I want it to be about being together. I think that the upcoming year is going to be an exciting one, filled with surprises that will show us all our hard work is going to pay off. This new year coming up is a new beginning for all of us. And...for starters, I'm buying a new Christmas tree."

"A new Christmas tree?" she asked. "Why when we have a perfectly good one up in the attic?"

"The old tree symbolized our old lives," I explained. "I bought that the year just before your dad left us. We've carried that tree around for years, living from one house to another. We've been living here for ten years and things have gone from bearable to simply fantastic as each year goes by and I want a new tree to celebrate our new beginning because I have a feeling that this upcoming year is going to be the year to remember."

I could tell she knew what I was talking about. Next year, she graduates nursing school (her dream) and I WILL get my subsequent books published (my dream). So, this new tree is going to be called The Dream Tree. By the time it is one year old, everyone will have achieved their wildest dreams.

Anyway, she seemed happier after my speech and went back to her room to study and I turned back around and started pounding away on the keyboard.

These are the kind of dreams that turn into realities - confidence that what you are doing is going to happen.