Close; mine was based on the tree not being sold because it was so ugly, and everytime some family would come in the tree would plead silently for them to buy him and take him home with them so he could be like the other prettier trees; the Higginbothams were quite poor and the little girl finally cadged her father into buying the wretched thing because it was all they could afford.
But, magically, when they got the tree home and decorated it with string and ribbon and scraps of bright paper, the tree glowed with the light of a thousand stars, sorta dopey but I wrote it in a couple of hours and turned it in the next day, the deadline, of course.
It sounds like a good story.