I know, most people have long had their trees down, but that's not me. I savor Christmas long after the actual day is gone. After all, Jesus is always with us, so there's no end to the results of that long ago Christmas day. But today, the day had come to take this year's tree down. It was getting dry and Buddy, the cat, has been having a field day with the ornaments. Time to give up.
And so Dan brought up the boxes and I began to remove the ornaments, one by one. Most of our ornaments are hand-made. We do have some glass balls and bells, boxes that my far-sighted sweetie bought after Christmas in 1971, just before our wedding, in anticipation of years to come. (Just another reason I love him!)
As I took down each ornament, I thought about its history with our family. Here's an ornament my longtime friend Kathy made for me when we were still in high school (and that's a few years ago!). Her family's tree was loaded with beautiful ornaments such as these:
Here's a special one to me; my dad wrote his name and the date on it back in 1958 and my brother wrote his name and the date in 1972. Mom gave it to me as a special Christmas gift a few years ago and I cherish it.
Next up is a small red bell that harkens back to Dan's childhood. There was once a green one, too, but after his mom's passing, the red one was the only one we found. It must always go near the top of our tree each year.
This next one was made by one of our kids when they were quite little, probably in Sunday School, but we can't remember which one made it. It wouldn't be Christmas with out this little red bird in an egg carton cup.
This year's tree was shorter than most. Dan ran out of time to get to the woods and a friend in a nearby town volunteered one he had in an old Christmas tree plantation. It worked just fine, as you can see from this photo below taken on Christmas Eve.
Today, as it made its last impression, it looked like this:
It was a good and faithful tree. And it's only eleven months until a new one will make its appearance. There's comfort in that.
