Sister Tree..

We had a small Christmas tragedy today at Shiny Red Houses. In spite of having my act together in virtually every other holiday way, we had somehow put off our annual "run and play through the forest of Christmas trees and feed the goats at the local Fancy Schmancy garden center."

The Fancy Schmancy garden center wrapped up their Christmas festivities over the weekend and shipped the petting zoo back to Siberia. The Christmas trees were largely gone and there was great sadness.
  
Luckily, our Second Favorite Fancy Schmancy garden center still had its animals, though they were not allowed to be fed by my poor pitiful homeschool urchins who were desperate to nourish the bellies of farm animals.

We admired the goats and even the llama. There were about a dozen big trees left, the rest were the most sorry collection of scraggly dwarf trees I have ever seen. There were definitely not enough trees to play hide and seek in so the kids tried to make the little sad trees more attractive by giving them snow ornaments.

It was pathetic. I had failed my children and ruined Christmas.

They consoled themselves by pretending that they were going to buy a real tree, which while small and full of bare spots would be superior in every way to our nine foot, pre-lit Martha Stewart artificial tree. They propped up the listing trees and encouraged the trees depressed by the weight of being overlooked on Christmas.

Finally, it was time to go. The girls took last sad looks at the forest that Christmas forgot and began to leave.

And there, right as we were heading to the exit, I saw the sign.

"50% off all $9.99 trees! Just $4.99!"

These were barely even trees, more like branches. Each was about two feet tall and clearly needed a home. The girls looked at me. I looked at them.

"Go ahead. Choose a tree."

There was joy and delirium! A tree! A real tree!

Now you should know that I have six lit trees in my house. Each bedroom has a small tree, there is a small tree in the kitchen decorated with vintage cookie cutters, the main nine foot tree in the living room and a tree on the porch which we call the "sister tree". The "sister tree" is a five foot skinny tree which the girls decorate together. The ornaments are pink and lacy and feminine. The lights on this tree gave out last week so I bought some new lights yesterday and planned on redoing the tree today.

Well, our little consolation tree became our new sister tree today.

It still had snow on it when I propped it up in an old silver champagne bucket.

 

The lights and decorations went up in a flash of giggling and grinning.

The experience reminded me of the purpose of the tree. Bringing in a tree which stays green all year and covering it with lights to ward off the darkness is the essence of hope and faith. Tonight the sister tree means so much more to me and reminds me of all of the light with which I am blessed.

Merry Christmas to you and your families and may your holidays be filled with light!

Aliens...

Sometimes aliens inhabit the bodies of my children.

Seriously.

There is no other explanation for what happened today at Shiny Red Houses.

While I was otherwise occupied, my children decided that it was Sister Day.

This meant that Rebecca sat with Lily and helped her do her schoolwork. I was shocked when they informed me that Lily was almost done with her work. The shock continued when I walked up the stairs and found them both completely naked preparing to take a bath together so that Rebecca could wash Lily's hair. They chatted and giggled and folks, the fun did not stop there.

After the bath they decided that they wanted to dress alike for our trip to the library.



They were focusing on trying to synchronize their steps.

At the library I could tell that the aliens were preparing to depart. A certain level of irritability was emerging as the hosts regained control of their bodies.

By the time we got home the aliens had abandoned their hosts and the girls were back to bickering. Rebecca had a headache. Lily was hungry.

We all have the memory though, of three perfect hours on Sister Day.

The miracle of sun...

Today the girls and I left Boston where it has been raining for the past 10 days. Some days it was a downpour and others it was a constant mist.

When we arrived on Cape Cod it was still grey, but the sun was clearly trying to appear. We are hardy New Englanders so even though we weren't certain about the weather, he headed off to the beach.

Guess what? The sun came out!

I'm not lying. Just look at that shadow!


Guess what Lily is doing?


Sand. The beach version of mud.

Rebecca hates to be left out.


What are they talking about? The economy? Boys? Astrophysics?


They were especially sisterly at the beach.



Rebecca takes her job as older sister very seriously.

Here she is saving Lily from waves.


You should be impressed that they are this far in the water

Look at them!



Check out the water temperature.


54 degrees. That's how we do it here in New England.

If the thought of all that cold water has you shivering, this picture should make you feel better.



You're welcome.