17.12.20

Of Trees and Lights

One of my very favorite days of the year is the day we go pick out our family Christmas tree.  I look forward to that day all year long.  I will admit it's such a pain stringing lights (I think there are 1,700 lights on our tree this year), and it's such a mess getting the tree out of the house after Christmas.  But it's worth it.  There's something so nostalgic to me about live Christmas trees.

When I was itty bitty, our Christmas trees were cut from the woods behind our house.  As a little girl, I remember going to a tree farm to cut down our tree.  There's the sweetest picture in the photo album of my dad laying on the ground cutting down a tree with my brother and me standing beside him watching.  And then when I got a little older, my mom got a fake tree.  Fake trees are fine.  We have four of those in our house.  But I don't think I'll ever give up my real tree, even once the kids have homes and families of their own.

It's been gradually coming, but this was the year certain children decided they were too grown for the annual family trip to find a tree.  I mean, I am 40-plus years old, and I will NEVER be too old for tree cutting and trimming!  So I promptly told them that one day they will truly appreciate the fact that their mother went to such lengths so they could have proper Christmas tree cutting and trimming memories and that these days once a year would end up being their very favorite.  And then I told them to smile, and they obliged.  But, just kidding!  We ended up choosing a different tree than the one we first put them in front of so they had to do it all over again. 

And then we unpack and open each ornament, sorting them by kid.  This little pile may not look like much, but it's priceless to me.  There are ornaments made by my grandmother and great-grandmother.  Many of them represent different family trips we've taken.  Some we've made.  The kids' ornaments were picked out year-by-year depending on their favorite activities or interests at the time.  As each one is pulled out, we tell the little story behind it.

This year we added three new ornaments to our tree.

It usually takes me at least two hours to string the lights.  Once I'm finished, the kids take turns hanging each of their ornaments.

My favorite new ornament this year celebrates mine and Seth's 20th wedding anniversary.  My bestie surprised me with it back in July.  I was lamenting the loss of the anniversary trip I'd planned and was so looking forward to for so long, but that little ornament put a smile on my face.  It's hanging beside the very first ornament we got after we were married.  My parents gave it to us Christmas 2000.

The kids picked out this ornament of the Alamo when we went to San Antonio during Mardi Gras break this year.  That was a fun little trip that actually has become much more meaningful.

This ornament was actually given to me right after last Christmas so this is its first year on our tree.  It's very meaningful because this was the first year we had the opportunity to volunteer at an OCC Processing Center.

And this is the ornament the kids picked out when we took our summer vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

I love coming in here in the early morning before everyone else, even the sun, is up and late evening after everyone has gone to bed and just looking at the tree.  There are lights, ornaments and ribbons, but I mostly see God's gifts and blessings to us these last 20 years.  I also wonder what ornaments will be added next year.

In addition to our family tree, the kids each have a tree in their rooms, and we have an advent tree that we add ornaments to every day leading up to Christmas Day.  The ornaments on the advent tree coincide with that day's devotion and Scripture reading.  The kids colored these the very first year we started doing an advent tree so those are always fun to pull out each day, too.  Ellie was two years old at the time so you can imagine what hers look like.  She asked this year if she could re-do all of hers.  Maybe next year.

In addition to hanging our advent ornaments each day, we also light a candle.  I can't even describe what it was like on December 1 to light that first candle.  In a year that has been marked by so much darkness, that candle brought so much light.  It seems like so much changed this year.  Maybe some for the better but most not.  By the time October rolled around, I really began to feel the heaviness of it, the darkness.  And I longed for December 1.  I longed to light that candle, NEEDED to light that candle.  I longed for advent, NEEDED advent.

Advent unwraps wonder, the greatest gift ever dreamed,

so come adore Him, the One who redeemed

all the willing and wanting wit this Advent Awe

a sacred, slow Unwrapping of a season of God.

The verse that has meant the most to me thus far this advent season is Isaiah 9:2.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,

upon them a light has shined."