Lyrics Page

The Perfect Tree

By Ray Boltz

866 views Sep 14, 2026 updated A Christmas Album album Verified editorial review

Song Meaning

Ray Boltz starts in a scene that sounds like any ordinary December — ornaments, lights, a family arguing gently over whether the tree should be straight or tall. It's deliberately mundane, almost distractingly so, before the song pulls back to something the decorations were never actually about.

"The perfect tree grew very long ago," Boltz sings, and suddenly the ornaments disappear: "it was not decked with silver or with ornaments of gold." What hung from its branches instead was a person — "Jesus laid His life down on the perfect tree" — turning a Christmas carol into a crucifixion hymn without warning.

Paul quotes an old curse formula in Galatians 3:13, "cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree," applying it directly to Jesus taking on a curse that wasn't his, and Peter writes that he "bore our sins in his body on the tree" in 1 Peter 2:24. Boltz's closing question — whether anyone under the decorated tree actually "sees" the other one — is really the whole song's point.

Lyrics Verified by Editorial Team

[Verse 1]

The ornaments are ready

The place has been prepared

Strings of lights and holly

Are draped across the chair

The family's all together

I know where they must be

Everyone is searching

For the perfect tree


[Chorus]

The perfect tree

Grew very long ago

And it was not decked with silver

Or with ornaments of gold

But hanging from its branches

Was a gift for you and me

Jesus laid His life down

On the perfect tree


[Verse 2]

Mother wants a straight one

The children want it tall

Dad just hopes that somehow

He can get it down the hall

Soon they'll gather round it

As proud as they can be

But when they're looking at it

I wonder if they see


[Chorus]

The perfect tree

Grew very long ago

And it was not decked with silver

Or with ornaments of gold

But hanging from its branches

Was a gift for you and me

Jesus laid His life down

On the perfect tree


[Verse 3]

With all the celebrations

Sometimes the truth is lost

That every step this baby took

Brought Him closer to the cross


[Chorus]

The perfect tree

Grew very long ago

And it was not decked with silver

Or with ornaments of gold

But hanging from its branches

Was a gift for you and me

Jesus laid His life down

On the perfect tree

[x2]

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