Decorating the tree.

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Christmas decorations are up. How much time, energy and money do we spend each year on Christmas decorations? Could we use that energy collectively for something of note? Such were my musings until we actually got the tree up.
I had Hum-bugged around for a couple of weeks using every excuse I could come up with to not bring all that junk out of the attic. I hate our tree. It takes almost two hours to unfold all of the limbs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful tree when it is done but I dread it every year. Tuesday we got everything down and thrown around the living room. Yesterday we picked up Keelin at school and she helped us hang the decorations. As you can imagine, up to about 4 ft the tree is VERY decorated. Every time I got on the step ladder to hang something high, she would climb the other side of the ladder to see what I was doing. I just knew we would both end up in the tree and against the wall.
When it was all over I sat in my chair and looked at what was there. We had the old moose stuck inside, the elf sitting on a branch out front. We had hand made decorations from twenty five years ago made by the kids. There was a tent from the year Robby was in Boy Scouts. There was a Scotty dog that Mandy got many years ago. There is a Veggie Tales “Peas on Earth” ornament. Many glass angels of many types. There is a set of ceramic ornaments Andrea made when we first moved back to Clanton when Robby was a baby. I saw a pair of tennis rackets from the year Robby learned to play tennis. Big glass balls, “money commeth” ornaments full of shredded currency. Keelin wanted to know why we tore up all that money just to put on the tree. That’s a whole ‘nuther story. Cheap metal ornaments with dates engraved on them to make them memorable. Blown glass Santas, “special” ornament that we have found over the years in Gatlinburg, Sea Side, and parts unknown. A couple hundred ornament that are the story of our lives. They are for the most part pretty. They will never mean anything to anyone but us. They mean everything to us.
Such is this season we call Christmas. We will not forget the reason for the season. Neither will we forget the passing of the seasons.
Uncle Westy, over and out!