Rockefeller Center’s Perfect & ‘Priceless’ Christmas Tree

Fox’s “Home for the Holidays” tells of a 79-ft Norway spruce arriving at Rockefeller Center as this year’s “world’s most famous Christmas tree” from a family’s home in Elkton, Md. It reminds of “The Christmas Tree,” a novel about a Nun’s life-long love affair with a tiny fir tree she’d 1 day donate to the iconic square, allowing it to be reborn & cherished forever.”

Author Julie Salamon helps us imagine how a little orphaned girl named Anna from NYC is sent to live in a convent. “Lonely … in her new surroundings, Anna befriends, as only a child can, a tiny fir tree” she calls “Tree,” which becomes “Anna’s best & most special friend. They grow up together, unlocking the secrets of friendship as well as sharing the wonders of nature,” which Anna, later as Sister Anthony, haltingly yet unselfishly in the end “passes on to her adoring students …” and, of course, to the Rockefeller Center.

Salamon’s sentimental “The Christmas Tree” is loosely based on a real event. But, isn’t that not so uncommon tale of human growth & kindness the real “magic” behind Thanksgiving and Christmas? Is it so hard to imagine, even in our cynical times, the unselfish feelings the Maryland Price family just gave to us all by sharing their own “perfect” & to them, undoubtedly priceless, tree?

Davd Soul