Meet me at the Evergreen Tree

prints of the original oil painting by Ken Dahl

This painting was inspired from an ancient, childhood memory of mine. When I was but a small lad of 10 my father handed me a small-handled wood saw and said, “Go get us a Christmas tree.” I trudged into the forest until I came upon a large, open area of birch trees, only to spot a small, perfect-for-the-holiday-season evergreen tree. But just then I remembered a cartoon about a “lonely Christmas tree” that needed a home for Christmas. “That one is perfect,” I thought to myself. But then I stopped dead in my tracks, because it was like the small tree was saying to me, “No, please let me live and grow tall, and maybe you can visit me again someday.” I never returned, and I wonder how tall that lonely, little tree grew over the last 57 years.