My Little Tannenbaum

A couple of months ago on the lead up to Christmas I wrote about my purchase of a mini Christmas Tree.  I explained I do not usually have a 'real' Christmas tree but that last year I suddenly had the urge to buy a small live one in a pot.  A tree was duly purchased and decorated and it lived on the windowsill for the duration of the Christmas period.

Soon after the decorations were removed we were plunged into a very cold spell of weather and whilst I wanted to put my mini tree outside, I hesitated as I thought the shock going from the relatively warm Conservatory to the freezing temperatures outside might do it no good at all.  Several weeks later and the days and nights have suddenly warmed a little, warmed up enough.  I whispered good wishes to the little tree, whipped off its gold 'hatty' pot covering and popped it outside into the Courtyard Garden.  If I turn around on my chair whilst I am working from home I can see it through the window and smile encouragingly to it.

I swear it is glaring back, I think it is sulking.  It is having a serious case of 'but I was special and decorated and kept indoors and then you dumped me outside as if I was just a tree' sulking.  It is just a tree, I hate to break it to it, but it is.  I am intending on potting it on when it needs it and bringing it back inside for next Christmas, but it is, primarily, a tree.

Even I am not that hard-hearted in reality.  I understand that it felt special and now it does not.  So in order to cheer it up I went and fetched a decoration and carefully placed it on the tree.

I know it is much happier now.  As I stood back feeling I had done something kind to the tree the song 'O Tannenbaum' suddenly wandered through my head.  I then remembered how one of my grandmothers heard me learning to play this song on the recorder when I was at junior school (yes that long ago) and how cross she was that we were being taught 'The Red Flag'.  I was totally confused as a) how could someone be cross with a song and b) why was she cross at a song about a tree.  My mother explained as best she could to my grandmother that it was song about a tree that just happened to have the same tune and then to me that it was a tune that also had other words to it that my grandmother did not approve of.  

I smile at this memory and wished I had a small red flag to give to the tree to look after.

Well it had to be done didn't it?

Stay safe and be kind

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