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!