Divorce causes a lot of suffering for all parties involved and we hear a lot of the horror stories from women who are ill treated by dead beat dads, sadly, the few stories of good dads who do their best to do right by their children are seldom told.  I made a promise to my little girl the day her mother and I split up that I would always be there for her and I have spent my life willingly trying to fulfill that vow.

 After support payments, bills and paying for a room all that I had left during one of my first Christmases as a single dad was enough to pay for a few treats for my little girl on the night she'd be with me, and the rest was needed to buy her the presents she'd asked Santa for.

The ex had allowed me to have my daughter Christmas night and when I picked her up I had all her presents on her list bought, paid for and wrapped in anticipation of her arrival. I couldn’t afford, nor was I permitted, to have a tree which to kids is like having a birthday party without a cake.

I racked my mind the night before and as I looked at the pitiful box of old, discarded and ugly ornaments and lights my family had donated to me an idea dawned on me. I first dug out the tacky tinselly blue garland and with thumbtacks and scotch tape proceeded to hang my Christmas tree. After the garland I wove the strings of multicoloured mini lights in and out around the garland. Ever so carefully I hung ornaments from each thumb-tacked branch of this wonderful tree. Then with some creativity I covered all the tape and thumbtacks with strands of silver tinsel and piled my daughters wrapped presents on the carpet below the wall hanging Christmas tree.

Stepping back I was not amazed to see it looked nothing like any Christmas tree I’d ever seen but…..

When I got to the door of my room and hit the lights something magical did happen, when you squint your eyes and tilted your head at just the right angle you could almost believe it was a real to goodness Christmas tree or so I told myself. I closed the door, said a little prayer and went to pick up my daughter for the night.  She asked me a ton of questions on the way to my house.

 “Daddy, how will Santa know I have two houses?”
“Daddy, do you think he got me my Strawberry Shortcake dolls?”
“Daddy, will he be able to get in if you don’t have a chimney?”
And the one I was afraid of most: “Daddy did you get a tree for us?”

I then proceeded to tell her we had a magic tree that nobody else had and that the angels had came in person to put it up and decorate it for us.

I left her in the vestibule for a second, went to my room dimmed the lights and plugged in the mini lights on my hanging tree, then, when I brought her in I blind-folded her with my hands over her eyes. When I took my hands away her exclamation of joy filled my heart to bursting and made me wipe away the start of little teardrops from the corner of my eyes as I watched her stare at our tree and presents.

Now the story could end here but it doesn’t that night I got her ready for bed and she snuggled up to her Dad. I’d left the tree lights on and it was a really magical feeling with the glow of those mini lights reflecting in my tiny room. We both lay there in the semi dark for a long time before we dozed off both in dream world of our own. Her no doubt dreaming of all the presents left early by Santa at her Dad’s home and me with the thoughts that maybe I could give her a Merry Christmas like this forever.

The big bang happened about three o’clock in the morning and the crash and tinkle of broken glass alerted us both to danger even if we knew not where it had originated. I quickly reached to turn on my lamp and once our eyes adjusted; we immediately saw what had caused the racket. My creativity in the shape of a wall hanging tree had come down in a pile covering the pile of presents below. I was afraid to look at my daughter for fear that I had let her down and she’d be devastated at the end of our magic tree. Surprise…when I turned to her, her two little hands were trying to hold back an avalanche of laughter bursting to get out.

It was then that the humour of the situation struck me and I dropped the handful of garland I’d been trying to salvage and took her in my arms as we laughed together. I always had a real tree in the years that followed but to this day one of ;my favourite Christmas memories is still that wall hung magic Christmas tree. It taught me a valuable lesson as well; that Christmas isn’t in the tree, the gifts or the food, it is in the heart and that is what makes every Christmas special.