O Christmas Tree

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O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree! Thank you for letting me find you. Thank you for staying with me during this great Natale.  Thanks for making me happy, thanks for spreading your arms wide, for so elegantly suspending my little trinkets in your graceful hands.  Thanks for warming up my new home and for making me and my friends happy. Thanks for being so brilliant and sparkling. 

I don't want to take you down.   How lovely is the memory of where I found you, how I found you, the day I found you.  I wasn't looking for you, but found you by accident while riding my little bike through Piazza Ferrucci. There you were, calling me, standing out so poignantly among the forest of Christmas trees aside you, begging me to take you home.  I will never forget how I saw you, standing alone, how I knew it was you and how I walked all nine feet of you home between the baskets on my bike.  How I walked you across the Arno and to my home.  I will never forget the joy you gave me and my friends throughout the Christmas season.  I am so happy that I found you roots and all, and that you will live forever in the bucolic Tuscan countryside of the Colle Senese.

It is time to take you down but I don't want to let you go, just like a kid doesn't want Christmas to be over. Your branches are still light, soft and full of life.  But it is time to undress you.  It is time to remove your sparkling dress and to store it away for another tree that will take your place next year.  I can't imagine that I will ever find a tree more beautiful next year to replace you.

I am so sad to undress you.  But I am ready.  In two hours Nicola will be here to wrap you up and take you on top of his car for a voyage to the country where you will be planted in the earth among the beautiful cypress trees on his property in the countryside of Siena. 

I cannot wait to see you again when I come to Siena to celebrate Pasqua. It will be spring.  You will be shooting new branches with exuberant birds chirping and playing around in your branches.  You will live and live forever, way longer than me, in the beautiful countryside of Tuscany.   Buon viaggio bello. Ci vediamo presto  presto ! .