Christmas Traditions

I wanted to share a story about Christmas traditions, but first I want to say thanks to everyone for praying for my family and I concerning the loss of my grandma.

I have talked to my mom several times since my grandma passed, and while she is very sad and we are all feeling the loss of my grandma, she said most of the tears she has cried have been tears of gratitude... gratitude for tender times she was able to have with my grandma over the past couple of years, especially within the past six months. It is such a gift when you consider we had no idea we would have to say goodbye to my grandma so soon. So I just wanted to give you an update and thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Now for my story about Christmas traditions...

One of our traditions at Christmastime is to get a live Christmas tree.

This is how the whole tree thing goes at our house:

1) We all go out and pick a tree together. Funny- it always surprises and amazes me how quickly we all agree on one!

2) Clint is in charge of cutting an inch or two off of the bottom of the trunk and any low limbs so we can get it into the tree stand. While he does this, I prepare the place for the tree to go in the house. Caleb usually helps Clint while Camryn helps me. Kelly will probably join us girls once she's big enough!

3) I hold the tree up while Clint fastens it into the stand. We always have the hardest time getting the tree level in the stand. I think our tree is actually crooked in the stand right now!

4) It's my job to put the lights on the tree. I'm kind of obsessive about the lights- I like a lot of lights, and they have to be "just so," so everyone lets me do that part by myself!

5) Now the FUN begins! We all decorate the tree together. We play Christmas music and have snacks while we decorate the tree. Clint usually sits back on the couch and tells us where the blank spots are while the kids and I put the ornaments on the tree. It's always fun to hang the ornaments together. Different ornaments bring special memories and we all always laugh and reminisce over them. The kids get ornaments as gifts each year from their Nanna and I, so they always love to hang their own ornaments on the tree.

So, now you know the tree-trimming tradition in our house... well, this year, things ended up a little different, and it wasn't in keeping with tradition...

You see, we were able to get the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but we ended up getting a bigger tree than we have in previous years, so we didn't have enough lights for it.

This threw a kink into our tree trimming, because I wasn't able to get all the lights on for us to decorate it that night. I had to go out and buy more lights the next day, but I wasn't able to do that before Clint had to leave to go out of town for the week. So, by the time the tree was ready to decorate, daddy was not home to be a part of the tree-trimming.

This put Caleb and I in no mood for trimming the tree. Not that either one of us realized that was the reason at the time, but neither one of us seemed remotely interested. It was like I blocked it out completely.

Of course, Kelly's too young to know what was going on, so she was oblivious. Camryn, however, did not like the idea of having an undecorated tree in the house, so she asked if she could decorate it by herself. I had just put Kelly to bed and as is typical for me right after putting Kelly to bed, I usually "veg out"for a while on the computer, so I was pretty tuned-out when she asked me, and I mindlessly agreed to let her decorate it by herself.

So here we are... Clint's out of town, Caleb is hanging out in his room, Kelly is in bed, I'm in the living room on the computer, and Camryn begins to decorate the tree-- all by herself.

The TV was going in the background, and Camryn began hanging the ornaments. I thought she must have felt so big and grown-up, bearing such a huge responsibility all to herself, the "official, honorary tree decoraTOR."

Well, about 15 minutes into it, she sighed a really big sigh, and with perplexity in her voice, said, "This is no fun. I feel really sad for some reason....... this is depressing." and she flopped onto the couch lifelessly.

I got up from the computer and sat down next to her and began to ask her more about how she was feeling. She seemed almost surprised by her feelings, but it didn't take long to realize she was missing our family tradition of decorating the tree together.

I had no idea how much it meant to her until that moment, but it was a special part of bringing in the Christmas season for Camryn and she was feeling the absense of it.

I felt badly that I didn't even anticipate this to be an issue or I might have been quicker about getting the lights on the tree so we all could have decorated it together before Clint left town. I offered to get off the computer, turn some Christmas music on, summon Caleb to join us, and at least the three of us could decorate the tree together. Camryn felt good about that, so that's what we did.

It ended up being really fun and we laughed as we reminisced about some of the special ornaments as we hung them on the tree. Caleb filled in for daddy and sat on the couch most of the time, telling us where the blank spots on the tree were.

Sometimes we have no idea how much the simplest things mean to our children. What a precious gift Camryn gave me to remind me of just how important those family times are. Even though I was sad that we missed doing it together with daddy this year, I was glad to know that these little things really do have an impact on our children. Don't you sometimes wonder if they even care or would miss it if you didn't do some of the things you do? Well, this year I realized it really does make a difference. It also blessed me to know we could still make it special and keep our tradition to the best of our ability as long as we did it together, even though we missed daddy very much.

In closing, I thought I would share some pictures of some of our favorite ornaments:

One of my best friends, Anna, gave me this one last year. She's my coffee-lovin' buddy for sure. The matching red Starbucks cup in the "It's Beginning" post below is also from Anna.

I got this one for our tree last year in anticipation of having Kelly home and counting three little chickies in my nest instead of two.


Camryn loves this one. She got it from her Westie-lovin' Nanna. See the Westie in Santa's pack? Of course, there's the other two terriers in his arms too!



This one is special to me- the kids and I made these together several years ago.

Ahh, can you tell this is one of Caleb's ornaments?


Here's another one of Caleb's. This was one of the first ones I got him when I started this tradition of getting them ornaments each year. He was REALLY into old-fashioned cars when he was little.

This one is really funny (not because it's Santa in his bathing suit under a palm tree on a tropical island, although that's pretty funny) but because last year BOTH Caleb's Nanna AND I got this one for him without knowing we had both bought him the same one! It was so funny to see his face when he opened the second one! So we put both Santas on the tree now and laugh at why we have two!

Anna got me this one too. We share a love for our country so she got one for both of us.

Nanna mentioned this one in a comment on my previous post. She got this one for Caleb along with the classic book about Little Black Sambo. She used to read that story to Caleb. The ornament is hand-painted. Now this ornament is Kelly's favorite!

Oh, this one makes me smile so... my parents got it for Clint and I for our first Christmas together.

This is Kelly's ornament this year. We thought it was so cute and being that she was born in the Chinese year of the pig, it just seemed fitting.

This is Camryn's ornament this year. It just reminded me of her- she loves a beautifully wrapped present, and the "Ho Ho Ho's" were a fun touch.

This is Caleb's ornament this year. I actually let him pick it out himself- there was something about it he liked. I thought it was funny and showed his silly side.


Another one from my coffee-lovin' buddy, Anna. I love these Starbucks ornaments, but it makes me want to run and get a coffee with her right now, and she lives 6 hours away, so that makes me sad! =(


This is one of Camryn's favorites- both kids have always loved it. They love to feel the soft tassle!



A dear girlfriend gave this to me several years ago. We've both moved and have consequently lost touch, but she was always so fun to be with and this shoe always reminds me of that and makes me smile!



I love this one for obvious reasons. This picture was taken in Mendocino- just north of where we used to live. We had so many sweet times there. Weren't they so little?

Caleb's Grammie gave this one to us the year he was born. She had a special shop she went to where a lady took custom orders to make these darling personalized ornaments. We were so bummed when the lady quit doing them a year or two later. Grammie was never able to get one done for Camryn like she wanted to.

This was my first "official" Christmas ornament. My mom sent it to me for Christmas along with a beautiful red coat that I loved and wore for years. I got this on my first Christmas "out on my own." I lived in a little apartment with a roommate and I remember how exciting it was to hang my very first ornament on our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. We forgot to water that poor little tree and it died before Christmas! In fact, we had to take it down on Christmas Eve- it was becoming nothing more than a pile of pine needles in the corner of our little living room. Anyway, this ornament will always be special to me.


These next two are angels I got for Camryn. The first one reminds me of what I looked like when I was little (not to sound like I thought I looked like an angel, but just the hair and coloring and all). Both of these ornaments remind me of Camryn though. I think she's always looked like an angel... okay, maybe not a real angel in the Biblical sense, but just "angelic." Hey, she's my little angel anyway!

I got some great pictures of the kids opening their ornaments from their Nanna this year, but I haven't downloaded them yet. I'll get those posted soon!

That one at the top of the post is of our Christmas tree this year after we finally finished decorating it! I didn't use a flash and I liked the old-fashioned effect it gave. It really shows how the tree glows. (Hey, I'm a poet! ;)