Tree's just do not grow up here on the high plateaus of the Rockies - everybody knows that. Trees need good soil and good weather, and up here, there's no soil and terrible weather. People do not live here. Nothing can live up here, certainly not trees. That's why the tree is kind of a miracle.
The tree is a juniper, and. it grows beside U.S 50 utterly alone, not another tree for miles. Nobody remembers who put the first Christmas ornament on it - some whimsical motorist of years ago. From that day to this, the tree has been redecorated each year. Nobody knows who does it. But each year, by Christmas Day, the tree has become a Christmas tree.
The tree, which has no business growing here at all, has survived against all the odds. The summer droughts some how haven't killed it, nor the winter storms. When the highway builders came out to widen the road, they would have taken the tree with one pass of their bulldozer. But some impulse led them to start widening the road just a few feet past the tree's branches. The tree has also survived the trucks.
The tree violates the laws of man and nature. It is too close to the highway for man, and not far enough away for nature. The tree pays no attention. It is where it is. It survives.
People who live in Grand Junction, thirty miles one way, and in Delta, Colorado, fifteen miles the other way, all know about and love the tree. They have Christmas trees of their own, of course, the kind of trees that are brought to town in trucks and sold in vacant lots and put up in living rooms. This one tree belongs to nobody and everybody.
Just looking at it makes you think about how unexpected life on Earth can be. The tree is lonely and so brave that it seems to offer courage to those who pass it-- and a message. It is the Christmas message: that there is life and hope even in a rough world.
