Project Christmas Tree Blessing

My Christmas Tree Story

One of my favorite holiday traditions is putting up the Christmas tree. It’s a family tradition we’ve had for as long as I can remember. The early days started with picking a “real” tree, hauling it home, putting on the lights and then putting on our special ornaments. We’d adore our ornaments collected over the years and share our memories as we hung them on the tree. Every year dad would put up the lights. When he was finished he’d ask us kids to sit back and do the “squint test” to identify any “holes” or areas where the lights needed to be moved for full coverage.

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Christmas tree decorating wasn’t complete without Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers playing in the background. Our fireplace would crackle and we were allowed endless cookies, or at least eat them when mom wasn’t looking!

The magic of setting of the Christmas tree didn’t stop with my childhood.

When I flew the nest, I no longer had a tree of my own but continued the tradition with my family. One day, a former teacher reached out to me and said he wanted to bless me and my husband with a tree since we were newlyweds. I felt so blessed by this gesture and excited to continue the tradition in my own home.

A few years later, I went through a divorce and was feeling very heavyhearted around the holidays. However, I found the strength (literally), to pull that tree from my apartment garage, and set it up by myself in the living room with my dog at my side. I told myself, traditions can continue even when you feel broken or alone. I still went home to decorate our family tree that year, but loved the strength I found in putting up my own tree.

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Fast forward three years, to last year. While I was working for The Salvation Army, we came across three Christmas trees that had been donated. We were having another event and decided to hold a drawing to give away the three trees. It amazed me that all three families who we drew, did not have a tree of their own already. The pure joy of the families picking up the (artificial) trees together really was special to witness. One little girl hugged us and her mom thanked us with tears in her eyes.

All these years, I took something special in my own family, for granted. I will never forget the faces of those families.

I now am remarried and celebrating my first Christmas with my husband this year. We recently picked out a new tree and set it up together, adding just a few special ornaments we gifted one another when we were dating. We are expecting this year, which has me thinking about this very special family tradition. I think about those families I met last year and my heart breaks for the children who do not know the magic of setting up the tree or having a place to put the special ornaments they have made in school. I want to help change this.

The Dream

This might be a large undertaking, but here is the dream: I want to collect artificial Christmas trees and provide them to individuals and families in need of a Christmas tree this year. How we will do it, we’ll figure it out, but I know it’s possible. I see trees in thrift stores all the time. I think back to the HUGE grins on the smiles of the families I met last year receiving their Christmas tree and wish I had a tree to give them this year.

If you live in the Fargo-Moorhead area and would like to donate a tree, please contact me: Kindly.Kallie@gmail.com. In the meantime, I am going to try and identify some families or individuals in need of a tree this year. If you know someone in need, I’d love to know this too. It can be families or individuals (maybe a veteran, someone going through a divorce, widow, etc.) Finally, if you are willing to help with the logistical aspects of this, please let me know. If we can do this, I’ll need help hauling the trees.

I’d love to share this dream and see if together, we can make it possible to collect 5 artificial trees by the second weekend in December so that the individuals or families receiving them have a few weeks to set-up and enjoy their trees! If anyone has (working) lights to add to any non-prelit trees, this would be helpful as well!

Please share to see if we can make this possible!