O, Christmas Tree

Earlier this week we went and got our Christmas tree. We have a small fake tree by the piano but this baby is the real deal. My boys did most of the decorating. I put on the lights and the beads at the end but they put on almost all of the ornaments (and a certain four year old I know has been rearranging them ever since). 

We have a good old-fashioned homey tree--the kind I grew up with. It has the same red satin balls that adorned our tree when I was a child. All the ornaments my kids have made in school are on the tree, as well as ornaments we have been collecting ever since we were first married (fourteen and a half years ago). My sister has the styrofoam gingerbread men that I remember though, including the one with teeth marks in it.

Our tree isn't fancy. It doesn't have a theme. It isn't elaborate and gorgeous. It doesn't look professional, but it is pretty and it smells good and was decorated by sweet, excited little boys while we listened to Christmas music.

I had a brief Grinchy moment when the blasted thing fell over onto two of my boys after we had finished decorating it, dumping a gallon of water on the carpet and scattering ornaments everywhere, but my husband adjusted it so that it is stable. We re-placed the ornaments and fixed it all up. 

Now it just makes me happy to look at it.

Yesterday evening I lay on the couch reading Dickens and drinking eggnog and basking in the glow from our tree and for those few moments, all was right with the world.