A happy ending for two unchosen Christmas trees

Dusk. 5 p.m. Traffic on Clemson Road, across from the big Village at Sandhill mall, is testimony to the last Sunday afternoon of Christmas shopping. Gnarly. Not to be messed with.

I’m waiting for the light to change, my eye wandering off to the right where, in a sandy area, there had been for the past several weeks a Christmas tree lot full of Fraser Firs. They are gone now. Selected, sold, decorating peoples’ living rooms and dens.

And that’s when I see them – two unchosen firs leaning against a fence.

It’s disconcerting, these trees that didn’t make the cut, the team. Dismissed as not shapely enough or tall enough or whatever other measure of beauty was in the eye of the beholder as he or she circled the tree, casting a discerning eye.

A car horn sounds. I wave in the rearview mirror. Sorry to keep you waiting; I wasn’t texting but I was thinking about those two trees over there. Did you see them? Stupid, I know, to worry about them, but sort of sad all the same. Foot on the gas, I head home.

I once knew a little boy who believed trees hurt when they were cut; his mama kept him away from construction sites where trees were being felled. What would he think of the two unclaimed firs, propped against the fence?

He would worry.

As do I, hating to see anything or anyone left out, deemed not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, whatever enough.

So I turn the truck around. There’s a story in that sandy lot, an important message propped against that fence. I don’t know exactly what, but there all the same.

At the gnarly intersection, I wait for a break in the traffic and pull in to where the trees should be. I don’t see them. I drive closer to the fence. They are gone. Gone. The only thing on the fence now is a black jacket with plaid lining.

I get out of the truck. Look around, climb the metal ladder of a nearby yellow dumpster to see if the trees are in there. They’re not.

Where did they go?

It’s then that my heart lifts. Does this story have a happy ending? Does it meet the sweet, glittery expectations of a perfect Christmas?

Did someone come by this sandy lot, someone who could not afford a tree? And then, because there were two trees, another person. Both of them parents, I want to believe, who will walk through the front door of their homes, bearing Christmas trees that their children did not expect.

I embrace the idea, the expectation. We have so many this time of year, don’t we? How perfect it’s going to be. The smiles, the excitement, the joy.

But I cannot leave well enough alone. I insist on an explanation about these two trees. I want my expectation met.

So I go home and locate the family who manages the tree lot every year. Jeri and Rich Minford of Boone, North Carolina.

“This is our 30th year bringing trees to Columbia,” Jeri told me.

“We started our first retail lot in Columbia the first year of our marriage when we lived in Ridgeway. Two years later, we had enough trees at the farm in North Carolina to warrant our moving up there permanently…We started out (with our tree lot) on Decker, moved to Two Notch next to Jimmy’s Mart and then, eight or so years ago, we moved to Clemson Road. Your lovely city has been so good to us.”

For that I am glad, I tell Jeri, but I want to know about the two trees that were left by the fence.

“Rich gave the last two to one of our helpers to put in his crappie bed in a nearby lake for better fishing,” she said.

We say our good-byes and I sit in my living room, my own Christmas tree nearby, shimmering with its lights and baubles.

The presents are wrapped; the stockings hung by the chimney with care. The dog is stretched out on the floor. The husband in his favorite chair.

The children will be coming home soon.

I can’t wait to get my arms around them.

It will be a perfect holiday.

And it is then that the ending of the story of the two unchosen trees makes itself known to me. The message, so important this time of year.

Perhaps not everything will be perfect this Christmas. The tenderloin may get too cooked. The magnolia leaves on the mantel will get dry. The sweater will be too small or the jacket too large.

But, whatever else falls short, I suspect there will be love.

And I suspect there will be two Christmas trees that, while they did not get chosen for a living room or a den, will be welcomed as simply perfect by fat, speckled crappies in a Carolina pond.

Merry Christmas.