As much as I loved Maggie Moo’s (Chocolate Amooratto with a Heath bar mix-in on a waffle cone, please), I’ve learned that Bravo Gelato is coming to the Creekside Crossing storefront  recently vacated by the ice cream shop .

 This will be owner Christie Hauck’s first venture into Brentwood. Recognize the name? Christie – as in the founder of The Christie Cookie Company – already has Italian gelato stores in Green Hills, The Mall at Green Hills and Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center.

I have it on good authority that even though Hauck no longer owns the cookie business, he has retained retail rights and so Brentwood’s new  Bravo Gelato will not only sell Italian-style ice cream, but will have cookies and baked goods too.

I played phone tag with Hauck on Thursday but am pretty sure if you drop by the store located by Pei Wei the first week of December, you’ll be able to get a cool treat.

Tell them you read about it in BrentWord!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree....

If you have an extra 30-40 foot Norway spruce in your yard, Randall Lantz wants to hear from you. Today.

The other night I was watching a local TV news broadcast and heard a report  that Nashville is still searching for its 2011 Christmas tree. I immediately thought of the beautiful one that stood in our front yard until the “not a tornado but sure seemed like one” that came through Brentwood last April 4.

I was at a business meeting that day when our next door neighbor called to tell me our tree had fallen. I thought, hoped she was talking about the ugly pine by the driveway but we weren’t so lucky. It was the 40-foot spruce that anchored our Brentwood acre’s southeast corner. So we can’t offer up our tree. But maybe you can.

On Thursday, I called Lantz, Nashville’s horticulture expert with the Metro Parks Department, to find out if he would take a tree from Brentwood. He said as long as it’s located within the NES service area, which includes most of our city, he’d love it.

Beyond the height, the perquisites are few:  it must look good from all angles and look like a Christmas tree. That’s why Lantz wants a Norway spruce or perhaps a blue spruce.

If you have one that you don’t mind donating to make a lot of people happy, Lantz’s department will come and cut it down, grind up the stump and plant a replacement tree in its place. A NES crew will transport it to the Public Square at the end of Second Avenue downtown where it will be decorated and then lit during the Nashville’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. It’s planned Friday, Dec.  2, before the 59th annual Nashville Christmas Parade kicks off.

Since Brentwood has its own living Christmas tree at the Brentwood Library, it seems like maybe someone here could help out the second best city in Middle Tennessee this holiday season.  If you have a tree in your yard or on your farm that might work and is ultimately selected, I promise to write about it, and you, and take a picture of it all dolled up for the holidays. I’m not sure why I’m making this a mission, but I’d love for a Brentwood tree to be the Nashville tree.

If you think you have the perfect Metro tree, call Lantz at 862-8400 or email him at Randall.Lantz@nashville.gov.

Susan Leathers is editor of Brentwood Home Page. Click here to read previous columns. Email her at susan@brentwoodhomepage.com