Taking Down the Christmas Tree

2013 Christmas Tree

Carolyn plays Santa Claus on Christmas morning, 2013

Peter, Andrew, Phillip, Rae and Paul
Christmas 2013

The Christmas tree comes down today. It has had a wonderful 2013 Christmas season. I am sad to see it go, but, like all good Christmas trees, it must become mulch to nourish another year's crop of trees and nursery plants and our living room must take on an orderly look that contributes to diet and exercise and regular Bible study and all things disciplined in January.

Several years ago, Crystal Alonzo and I decorated the pine cones that I hang on the tree. We salvaged them from local parks and street medians, then painted them with glitter and put twine hangers on them. The tree is populated with family photographs, made into ornaments. Baby pictures, first lost tooth pictures, family vacation pictures in canoes in Canada, at Cadillac Ranch in Texas, at the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, on the Oregon coast... Beloved pets are featured on the tree: our eccentric orange tabby who drank from the kitchen faucet, our darling twin poodle-terrier dogs... Our lives are enriched and refined and defined by our relationships, and so many of the stories are told on this tree every year.

Those ponchos, by the way, are from our vacation to Puerto Vallarta in October/November of 2013. Our sons wear those colors proudly!

Until next December...

--Posted by Mama O.