I won’t deny it. With little kids, Christmas time is just absolutely SPLENDID. You know, unless somebody melts down, has higher expectations than warranted, is over-scheduled and grumpy, or missed his nap. Sometimes the above person is none other than the Mommy. That just about describes my experience putting up our living-room artificial Christmas tree this year. One night when Rod was at band practice, I hauled it in and set it up all by myself (unless you count the kids, who were asking me questions while I was trying to think and dragging random decorations in from the garage at the same time). The tree turned out okay apart from one strand of burned out lights on the left side half-way down, but the Christmas tree putting-up was not quite the sparkly memory I had in mind.
Christmas trees, take two! Our family tradition has always been to get our family room “main” tree from the local tree lot across the street from our church, and this last Sunday afternoon, while we were lazing around on the couch, Rod and I had the brilliant idea to go get the tree. So we did. The kids were all about it. We were all in splendid moods, and we found the perfect tree. Then Rod chopped off the bottom of the trunk, I spread out the plastic, and the kids made themselves scarse (in some way that, miraculously, did not involve messing up the house). We brought in the tree to the sounds of Amy Grant’s “Tennessee Christmas” and the smell of a cinnamon candle. THIS was how it was supposed to be. We sifted through the ornaments and talked about the times when we received them. We only dropped and broke two. And then, I took this photo. As a friend said, “Norman Rockwell is smiling down.” Ha ha! But yes, that was the way I felt that day, and I’m so glad I have the image to remember it by. Merry Christmas from the Gray Family!
