Now we're past the named days but into the season of advent and the "twelve days of deals." The mixed messages of faith and consumerism: "wait patiently" vs. "shop now!" What a strange holiday we have wrought over the years, from Norman Rockwell fireside scenes to frenzied store lines or manic typing away at keyboards.
Over the weekend, in between sport practices and temper tantrums, we put up a live tree. We haven't had one in three years due to traveling the past two Christmases. The kids were delighted, and Aden proved to be a master of patience with the lights, one strand of which was a bum deal. We didn't realize the problem until all strands were on the tree, of course, but I let her take charge of the re-do and all ended well. We enjoyed pulling out all of our old ornaments and reliving the memories, from my kindergarten crafts to Rob's angel from his great-grandmother, to the nursery school successes of our kids to souvenir baubles from Costa Rica. I found myself in tears several times at the speed of the passing years, and had to hide my face in the curious cats before I exasperated the kids.
My kids surprised me by calling for silver icicle tinsel to top off the tree. My parents always decorated our childhood trees with the flimsy, floating stuff, which catches light in beautiful and mysterious ways but also migrates all over the house and sticks to kids, cats and carpet. For the latter reasons, I've never had it for our trees, but I was tickled yesterday when they asked me to buy some. I'll take a throwback to the old magic any time I can get it, though I can promise we'll still be finding tinsel come Easter.
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