The Christmas Tree

By Julie Salamon and Jill Weber

The classic New York Times–bestselling tale of friendship, generosity, and the magic and wonder of the Christmas spirit
 
On his annual search for Rockefeller Center’s next Christmas tree, the chief gardener spots an ideal candidate: a stately Norway spruce located on the grounds of a convent. There he meets Sister Anthony, a nun for whom the tree has special meaning. Orphaned and sent to the convent as a lonely young girl, Sister Anthony befriended the then-tiny spruce whom she lovingly named “Tree.” Over the following decades, as the tree grew, so did Sister Anthony’s appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature.
 
She is reluctant to see her oldest and closest friend chopped down and sent away to New York City. But when a fierce blizzard threatens the old tree’s existence, Sister Anthony realizes it’s time to let the world enjoy Tree as she has for nearly her whole life.
 
Accompanied by charming illustrations and a new introduction by the author, The Christmas Tree is a heartwarming story of love and friendship, a modern holiday classic for all ages.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Oct 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504036573

Julie Salamon

Julie Salamon was a film critic and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal for sixteen years and was recently appointed as a television critic for The New York Times. She is the author of The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, White Lies, The Net of Dreams, and the New York Times bestseller The Christmas Tree.

Book preview

Introduction

While I was writing The Christmas Tree in 1996, the mystery of life’s journeys was very much on my mind. My daughter was in first grade and my son was one year old. I had just completed a memoir about my parents’ journey from Eastern Europe to the tiny town (population seven hundred) in southern Ohio where I grew up. Since 1975, New York City had become my home. I had a good career as a journalist and a promising start as an author.

My expectations for this novella were modest. Could I tell a good story that adults and children would enjoy and find worthwhile? I had no expectations beyond that, certainly not for what followed. The Christmas Tree would become a New York Times bestseller, translated into a dozen languages. Two decades later people would still be writing affectionate reviews, and I would continue to receive letters from people all over the world, telling me how much the book meant to them—and to report that now their children are reading it to their own families.

The older I get, the more amazed I am by the enduring power of stories, for both readers and writers. Creating this book provided me a way to connect the raw beauty and uncertainty of my rural childhood to the fulfillment I’d found in New York, a city that can be harsh or awe-inspiring, depending on the day. Many of the places you’ll read about in these pages were built on memories of Adams County, Ohio, as well as teachers I’ve valued and friends I’ve loved. The writing also helped me come to terms with the inevitability of loss. For each reader, the story will have a different meaning, based on a different set of experiences, yet all connected by one text.

The Christmas Tree was the first time I’d worked with an illustrator. How lucky I was to be matched up with Jill Weber, a gifted artist who would become a friend and future collaborator. She lives on a farm in New Hampshire; I still live in Manhattan. We didn’t meet face-to-face until after we’d finished the entire book. After that, we continued on our separate careers. But we always stayed in touch and a few years ago reunited to collaborate again on books (Cat in the City and Mutt’s Promise) aimed at children in the eight- to twelve-year-old range.

We are grateful to Open Road for reissuing The Christmas Tree in time to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its original publication. Jill’s son, Remy, had just graduated college when the book first came out; now he has children old enough to read it on their own. My daughter, Roxie, has become a teacher and my son, Eli, is a new college graduate, ready to begin life as an adult. Jill’s husband, Frank Weber, and my husband, Bill Abrams, continue to provide invaluable love and encouragement—and that most precious commodity, a fine-tuned sense of humor. As always, this book (and everything else we do) is dedicated to them, the families we hold most dear.

Julie Salamon

March 2016

Prologue

I’m not a sentimental man, but when I saw her standing there, under the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, I started to cry.

She was not a young woman; in fact, she was fairly old. But her eyes stayed fixed on the star at the top of the tree with the curiosity and amazement of a child who has just discovered something new and wonderful. With her bright, bony face barely poking out of her black habit she looked like a little bird next to that giant tree. Only later would I understand exactly what lay behind the sparkle in her eyes, what it all meant to her.

Her name was Sister Anthony, and she was a friend of mine.

An unlikely friend, I suppose. I’m still not sure she ever knew what she did for me. But that’s how it goes, I guess. You’re touched by something or someone here and react to it over there and most times you don’t connect one thing to the other. With Sister Anthony I knew, and I am grateful for that.

Forgive me. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you who I am and how I found myself in tears at an event that had become routine for me long ago.

I am the chief gardener at Rockefeller Center, though I think of myself as a magician of sorts. It’s up to me to conjure up a Christmas tree every year—a tree so grand, so impressive—so magical—that it can stop New Yorkers in their tracks. If you’ve ever seen people flying around Manhattan, especially at Christmas, you can appreciate why I always get a little nervous this time of year.

It’s enough to make you dread the season. We’ve had so many perfect trees perfection has become the norm. When you get 100 out of 100 every year you get no praise for getting 100 again, only complaints if you don’t.

What is perfection?

It’s hard to describe exactly what makes the perfect Christmas tree. The physical requirements are straightforward enough. The tree must stand tall and straight. Its branches must be thick and graceful, and they must point upward, giving the impression that they are reaching to the sky. They also have to be flexible, since they are tied down during the long journey to New York City.

But the trees that are finally selected need something more than height, thickness and suppleness—even more than mere beauty. And that’s where I come in. I’m not an exceptional fellow in most ways, but I do have this gift. I can see if a tree has character, a spirit that outshines the ornaments and tinsel and lights—if its beauty comes from the inside and not just the outside.

I don’t know how to put it any other way. I’ve often wished I had the same gift with people.

Walk through any park and you’ll be able to find them, if you look for the right signs. In summer, the grass around their trunks will be flattened and brown because so many people have sat there. In winter, you feel warmer just

Reviews for The Christmas Tree

[buckwriter-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Christmas Tree by Julie Salamon, illustrated by Jill Weber and re-published by Open Road Integrated Media this next Oct 4th in a new edition for the 20th anniversary is a book that you can't and you won't put down and it will be one of the best gifts for this next Christmas for sure.

It's so precious, tender, plenty of wonderful humanity and good feelings.
A little big story able to warm the heart of millions of people in the world.

The book is narrated in first person by the manager of the Rockefeller Center of NYC deputed at the choice of the Christmas Tree and by Sister Anthony...

Everything started a lot of time ago when a little baby called Anna lost all her family and was sent in an orphanage. Later some nuns agreed to give her hospitality, because the toddler very nice and a person of good heart. Brush Creek opened the arms at this little kid. Anna became diffident because she had met along her way (at the orphanage) a lot of bad companions.

Anna started to make friendship not with some humans after all but with a tree, that she will call Tree. This tree a Norwegian one will become her best friend and the symbol of her life and of her personal spiritual and physical growth. Tree and Sister Anthony will grow up together, year after year.

Will Sister Anthony agree to share with NY, the city where once she was born and with the rest of the world her beloved tree, that to her meant a lot, cutting the past and giving a new start at her life?

I cried a lot of times while I read this little, precious tale. It is moving.

I would suggest this book to all of you, because Christmas is not just a feast but a part of us and our life-style.
Christmas is not just on Dec 25th but everyday and everyday we should spread to the world our own light.

The cover is beauty but I would have chosen a different image, for create a more, genuine romantic idea to the reader about the story, with more colors.

I thank Netgalley for this book.

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, the fellow responsible for finding it each year, and a convent in New Jersey with the perfect Norway spruce.Sentimental. Not entirely hogwash. I do think it tries a bit too hard.

[dbhutch_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Christmas tree is a very touching story of a orphan who grows up in to a nun and her best friend all through her life is Tree. Tree is a Norway Spruce and when the man telling the story spots the tree as he is scouting trees to find the tree for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree he meets the nun who has cared for this tree and they build a wonderful friendship that helps him like his job again and help the nun know when the tree is ready to be the big and beautiful tree of Rockefeller Center.

[tiffanyhickox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A nice, short, and touching holiday read.

[Skipper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a magical Christmas read that has become a delightful annual tradition to enjoy!

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Every year, the chief gardener at Rockefeller Center responsible for selecting the tree that will grace the Center for Christmas flies over New Jersey seeking the perfect tree. He doesn’t really enjoy this job but he is very good at it. He searches for a tree with ‘character, a spirit that outshines the ornaments and tinsel and lights’; one whose ‘beauty comes from the inside and not just the outside’. This year he spots what he thinks will be the perfect tree. When he drives out to the site, he discovers that it is on the grounds of a convent. He is told that one of the nuns, Sister Anthony who has spent most of her life at the convent, is the only one who can decide whether he can take the tree. To her it is not just a tree; it is Tree. She planted it when she was a lonely little girl, an orphan, and it has been her best friend, her solace, and the depository of all her secrets ever since. She now tells stories to children under the tree and, although, she will not part with Tree, she invites the narrator to come and sit with them and hear about her shared life with Tree. Over the years, the pair develops a close relationship as her story helps him see the beauty of the season. Eventually, after a storm that damages many of the trees although not Tree, she realizes that it has lived a very long life for a Norwegian spruce and she relinquishes it so that it can provide joy to others as it has to her.The Christmas Tree by author Julie Salamon was originally released in 1996 and is being reissued this year with some rather lovely illustrations by Jill Weber. It is a fable about finding beauty all around us if we would just stop and look and is based on a true story about a group of nuns who donated a tree to the Rockefeller Center in 1995. It is a sweet tale, at times a bit too sweet for my taste. Still, it is fairly short read and, I suspect, given its lasting appeal, that most readers will enjoy its uplifting message at this hectic time of year. Thanks to Netgalley and Open Road for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[jbarr5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

updated review: The Christmas Tree by Julie Salamonwrote first review Jan 2015: I have read many books about how the tree is selected and how it gets from point A to point B.Very fascinating details along the way. Based on the NJ nuns that donated a tree to the NY Rockefeller center for the holidays.As told from the gardener of Rockefeller Center he must search for and find just the right tree every year to display.One day from the air he learns of the Nunnery and how it came to be as he finds a really good tree. Love hearing of the different species of trees as my family is in the nursery business.Loved hearing of the journey as I had read about a similar journey from the west coast=a tree for America. Love the history how the tree is selected as I am from a nursery family. We just recently removed our 30 yr old CO blue spruces as the branches were too damaged to save.Pictures along the way help tell the story.I received this book from Open Road Media in exchange for my honest review.