Our Christmas trees have progressed and regressed over the years. We had a small condo during dental school and then a rental house, our trees couldn't be too big. Next came our first home. It had a vaulted ceiling in the living room and we could have tall, big, fat trees. The kids loved going to the Christmas tree farm and picking out the best tree. The trees got bigger and bigger every year. When we built our current house it has a room sorta octagon shaped with a sunroom/indoor patio. This room was the perfect room, for the perfect tree, we moved into our house Thanksgiving weekend and told the kids they could have any tree they wanted. Off we go to the Christmas Tree Farm and there standing in the middle of a field was a tree all by itself. I am sure that this tree was left over from the previous year and it was gigantic. Think, perfect for some large public building. It was so gigantic our stand couldn't hold it. We got a new stand. It was so gigantic it still wouldn't stand up. We bolted it to the baseboards (ouch, my brand new baseboards, that happened when I wasn't looking). It was so tall, probably twenty feet we couldn't reach the top without a ladder, but it was so fat that even with a ladder you couldn't reach the tree. And then there was the problem of lights, ornaments etc. Anyway, after that year we decided to move the tree, some years it's been in the family room, some years in the living room, and the size has been decidedly more manageable. Some years we would have Christmas at the cabin, and our tree would be a smaller one we cut. My favorite part of cabin trees are the candles we put on it. Last year we had Christmas at the condo, I'm not sure what day we got there but for some reason it was Christmas Eve and we were looking for the perfect tree. We finally found it (at least I thought it was pretty perfect). Anyway, this year Brad let me know that is was not ok to be looking for a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, that he wanted the perfect tree, perfectly decorated, no last minute affair. It reminded me of Easter (click herefor another account of proud parenting). Sometimes I forget that Brad is only 12, he hasn't had all of the Christmas experiences the other kids have. I forget the importance of making a celebration important and special for him. I get lost in the hustle and bustle of too much to do, and forget the very people we do it all for. This year is a year to remember each other, a year to sit and enjoy the tree, the stockings, the food, the family. So family, slow me down, remind me that we don't need one more thing, we don't need one more last minute item, we just need time for each other. And a perfect Christmas for a twelve year old boy.
4 comments:
That's funny. I remember that huge tree, it was only decorated on the bottom third, not even lights on the top. The funny thing is that even though that room is a perfect shape for a huge tree, you can't really see the tree unless you are standing in that room, from the outside all you could see through the french doors was a big bushel of partially decorated evergreen. I think my favortie trees were when we used to make all of the ornaments.
Monday--all day cookie making!!!
That huge tree was awesome!!! It was a lot of fun decorating those trees with strings of popcorn, lights and ornaments!!! I love how the cabin has the built-in christmas tree on the deck... if you uncover the snow on it....
So Melinda, if you ever get tired of audiology, you should try free lance writing. You blog makes a great bed time story.
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