Texas Librarian

Schema: Christmas trees, Great Depression

Author’s Purpose: to share about the Rockefeller Christmas tree and Habitat for Humanity.

Cause and Effect: Because the father in the story gave from his heart to the men at the construction site, the effect is that the men wanted to help his family with their home.

Because the young boy was helped as a child with getting a home built, the effect is that he is willing to let his tree be used to help Habitat for Humanity to build a home with the wood from it.

Set in 1931, the out of work father of a family living in a shack has the idea of cutting some Christmas trees to sell in New York City. He and his son drive in one day and ask some construction workers who are building Rockefeller Center if he could park there and sell his trees. At the end of the day, the father leaves with money in his pocket and gives the extra trees to the construction workers that he visited with during the day who put the tree up there at the building site and decorate it with what they had. The next day, the construction workers surprise the family at their shack with extra wood and scrap wood to help them fix up their shack. They men end up building them a new home. The young boy in the story is given a claw hammer by one of the men to extract nails from boards they want to use on the windows. Years pass by, the young boy grows up, returns to live in the little house, and a man comes by from Rockefeller Center to buy a tree on his property that grew from a pine cone he had planted the day after his visit to the city to sell the trees. The tree meant a lot to him, but when he heard that the wood would be donated to the Habitat for Humanity to help build a house for a family in need, he knew it was time to give the tree to the Center. The story also includes historical information about how the men at the site in real life put a tree up in 1931 as a tribute to thank the Rockefeller’s for hiring them to work there. Since then, each year a tree was placed there for all to enjoy. An afterward about Habitat for Humanity is also included.