Three foot tall Christmas

It's December 8th and 6 in the morning.  My daughters getting tubes put in her ears today.  Everyone says it's minor surgery.  I remember before the surgery she was being grumpy when the nurse was trying to take her height.  She never did get her to stand and my daughter's height was a mystery.  When the nurse tried to get her to stand straight Marissa would fall limp like a sack of potatoes and lay on the floor.  The nurse got sneaky and out smarted my daughter by measuring her height on the bed sheet.  She marked the head and toe and then used a tape measure to get the magic number of 3 feet exactly.  She took her terribly bitter medicine like a champ but she wouldn't stand to be measured.  The medicine contained some narcotic or something and it was making her act really goofy.  She was laughing uncontrollably over things she normally wouldn't and her balance was off.  Everything was funny and in 10 minutes she would be asleep in surgery. So here we were in a hospital before surgery having a blast.  They wheeled her away in the bed and we watched her go down the hall with her little face peeking through her crib posts like a little toddler inmate.  My wife said that little girl had no idea what was about to happen.  That was the saddest part.  She was so happy and soon she would be awake and screaming out of surgery.

We have a little Christmas tree.  I drug it out of storage a few days ago.  There it sat upright but not decorated.  Michelle grabbed up Marissa and the angel for the tree.  We have a bay window that we put our little tree in.  Michelle set Marissa by the tree and told her to put the angel on the top. Marissa was standing next to the tree trying to put the angel on and I noticed something. They are the same height.  Today during surgery Marissa's height was 3 foot exactly and now we know how tall our tree is.  We've had the tree for as long as I can remember.  Next year she won't need help with the angel.  We've had the 3 foot tree since we met each other 11 years ago.  Every year Michelle would get the little tree out and we would decorate it together.  We better buy a bigger tree next year or I'll feel really old when she stands next to it.