Oh, My Tannenbaum

As you may recall, we had Thanksgiving at home this year and I had thought how wonderful it would be to put up our tree on Thanksgiving after the meal, and we could decorate it as a family. Well, the tree had a section that wouldn't light up and it kind of took all the fun out of it. I knew I was going to have to buy some lights and string them into that section.

So the tree sat that way for a week. Or more.

It was pretty pathetic. And I just couldn't get my tree-decorating jive going and I didn't know what the matter was. I wanted a change. I wanted different. But that would require a lot of work that I wasn't sure I was willing to give to this particular situation.

But the energy finally came. And the plan took shape. And I enlisted the muscles in the family to move the stereo cabinet and a desk and the piano.

We shook it up, Baby!

And on Monday I finally had it all rearranged, cleaned, organized and ready for The Family Tree Decorating. What I love about our main tree is that it is full of ALL our ornaments; the fancy glass balls from Macy's (department store, not grocery store), the felt and ribbon creations by 3 and 4 year old boys, my straw ornaments from Panama, five "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments, Grandmother ornaments, and even some styrofoam creations and some shrinky-dinks I made as a child in the 1960's. It is all on there

And Doug loves to contribute the popcorn strands.

So he and Abbie took care of that, sort of as an afterthought, but it still worked.

I love our tree. Every year I love our tree all over again. It is full of life (except it is artificial) and living and memories and stories.

It is a tree of history and adventures and happy times. I love the predictability of this tree. Every year it goes up differently, but it is always the same.

This tree says, to me, that even while life changes and some things get broken and some things don't work like they used to and some things are getting old and worn, my life is still beautiful and it is so, so full of stories. Really good stories.

And I love reflecting on that.