For the Journey


Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day. ~A.A. Milne

"You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance." ~Psalm 65:11
We may or may not have had our Christmas decorations up since before Thanksgiving.  But we did get our tree the day after Thanksgiving since we put a real tree in our family room.
The kids were THRILLED.  I mean, their faces say it all, fake smiles and everything.  When I was a kid, one of my most favorite things to do was go pick out a tree.
But as soon as I said, "Hey, kids, hop on the truck and hang out the doors for a picture," they perked up.  There's just something about a red truck hauling a Christmas tree.  Kind of reminds me of all those nostalgic Christmas pictures floating around this time of year.
And, I have to admit, I have a love hate relationship with the next part of tree trimming.  I'm VERY particular about the light placement on my tree.  So it's just best that I do this after everyone, including Seth, goes to bed.  It takes me two or three hours and sixteen strands of lights.  It's my least favorite part, yet I absolutely LOVE it!  And once the lights were strung, the tree stayed just like this for a week, which is just fine with me.  (And notice Rudolph right there.  Hannah Kate painted him two years ago.)
We finally got all of the ornaments out and ready to hang on the tree.  I don't do fancy theme trees anymore.  Our big tree is full of the ornaments we've collected over the years.  Each and every one of them is full of memories, and we talk about each one as it's hung.  Even though the ornaments are the same year after year, the memories seem to only get sweeter.  It's almost like they're brand new all over again.
We try to pick up an ornament on each family vacation we take.  We came back with several from our Kentucky road trip:  ornaments from the Louisville Slugger Museum, Abraham Lincoln's birthplace and the Ark Encounter.  What a fun trip we had this summer!
And, of course, we have our little collection of ornaments from our Disney trips.  The last time we went, Seth said we didn't have to go back.  I kind of agreed with him.  But now I've changed my mind!  Ellie and I are both ready to go back!
And, of course, these ornaments will ALWAYS be my very favorites!  My grandmother and great-grandmother used to make their own ornaments.  Grandmother had nothing but these ornaments on her tree.  I used to sit and stare at that tree and those ornaments as if I'd never seen it before, even though it was the same year after year.  Grandmother had a tremendous collection of styrofoam balls, pins, sequins, ribbons, trim and all kinds of things neatly arranged and organized into old baby food jars in her sewing room.  My eyes get wide just thinking about it.  One summer she had a Christmas ornament making bootcamp for all eight of us grandchildren.  All of the ornaments I made that summer still hang on my parents' tree.  Grandmother gave me these when I got married.  I'm looking forward to one day having a tree full of nothing but her ornaments.  These really are among my greatest treasures.
The very first ornaments that were hung this year were those from Pop and Mimi.  Every year, Mimi carefully selects a brand new ornament for each child and mails them to us.  This year Mason's is football themed.
Hannah Kate got this little nutcracker mouse.
And Ellie got a gymnastics girl!  Boy, Mimi really knocked it out of the park with this one.  Ellie was so excited when she opened her ornament!  She gets aggravated because the big kids have more ornaments than she does (I mean, they've had a few more Christmases than her!), but she was beside herself with her ornament this year.
Even though no one else is allowed to string lights on my tree, I do let the children hang their own ornaments.  And I don't even move them!  Of course, they've learned ye old trick of "stepping away" from the tree to find empty spaces, too.  And I fill in afterwards. They really did a great job this year, and it was a perfectly lovely afternoon of trimming the tree, all the while listening to Christmas carols!


And let's also take a moment to remember the day it SNOWED!  For the very first time in my life, I had a white Christmas!  Trust me . . . the fact that we decorated the tree while wearing shorts and then turned around a couple of weeks later and took a picture of the tree with snow on the ground outside isn't lost on me at all!
The kids also decorated the trees in their rooms.  Mason's is full of fishing lures, footballs and basketballs.


Hannah Kate's little pink tree had seen better days so she picked out a new tree this year. She chose gold!


And, of course, Ellie's tree is white because that's really all you can do with a hot pink room!


I love getting up early in the morning before the sun rises and plugging in the lights to our trees and garlands.  I also love staring at the lights late at night after everyone is in bed.  There's just something about a Christmas tree.  And look at this one!
My Mama surprised me with it earlier this week, and I had the very best time decorating it.  I love everything about it, even the colored lights (it came with the ornaments and lights)!  It sits in my kitchen, and it definitely makes my spirit bright every time I see it.  You can also see our Advent tree in the background behind it.  That's the same tree we've been using for several years now.  The kids colored those ornaments, one for each day of Advent, four years ago.  So by the time Christmas Day arrives, there are so many ornaments on that tree that you can't even see the lights or greenery anymore!

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree . . . how lovely are your branches . . . 
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