The Acorn

"From a tiny acorn a mighty oak tree grew".

I am very sure that has been written and rewritten a time or two. This post is a little acorn too and it just might grow more than a big tree.

I hear so much frustration in voices lately. It is especially prevelent around Halloween when the first twinkling Christmas tree is put up by a hopeful store owner. It is soon joined by a whole forest of them along with musical accompaniment.

Some trees are easily identified by being green and having lots of branches to hang lights, garland, ribbon and ornaments of every size, shape, subject and color. Others are a confusing silver, purple, pinkblueorange or gasp...black.

Which leads me to the thought...when has a black tree ever really inspired a chorus of 'Deck The Halls."

Believe me when I tell you that I was born more or less Methodist, but raised Decommercialized. Better said, I was so unused to receiving anything storebought, my parents actually took me to a toy store one day and told me to pick any toy I wanted. It took me hours to decide because I didn't have anything they offered so I had to pick up, and contemplate EVERYTHING. That is not to say I was unhappy, or that I lacked for things to do but I just didn't ever think of getting anything. I also did not pick up two toys that day...just one.

In my family we had a little tradition known as 'The Christmas Acorn.' It really was....an acorn. From the moment you found it on your night stand, next to your toothbrush or some other obvious only to you, little place, all day long until you left it for the next person, you were honor bound to do the nicest things you could think up for every member of the household.

You raced to do chores before anyone else could do them, offered compliments and kindness, scraped the snow off the car, whatever you could think of to delight your family. The inspiring thing about this merry romp is when it wasn't 'Your Acorn Day,' it was someone else's and that meant your socks would get to the hamper and your chores would be magically done! It was all very hush hush but you could guess who was "it" because they were soooo nice, and sometimes you got two pieces of cake!

While the day you held the acorn could be pretty challenging...it really made you feel good to do all those things for other people. It also went without saying that if you really did a good job....the next person was going to spoil you rotten.

By Christmas, the whole house just hummed with joy. It was better than a whole pile of presents, and, if the acorn got lost...there were plenty more where that came from.

The little acorn was placed in a tiny white box, set on the mantle until spring when the ground got soft enough to take it to the woods near our house to plant it. I often wonder how many trees grew.

Gratefully,

Mary