Trimming the Tree

The Tuesday before we left to go home to Texas for an early Christmas with our families, we decided to decorate our Christmas tree. Every year, we get a new ornament for our tree in celebration of Jesus' birthday!   This year we chose a candy cane ornament to remind us of the Gospel with this simple poem:

"Look at the Candy Cane
What do you see?
Stripes that are red
Like the blood shed for me
White is for my Savior
Who’s sinless and pure!
“J” is for Jesus My Lord, that’s for sure!
Turn it around
And a staff you will see
Jesus my shepherd
Was born for Me!"

The tree ready to be decorated! We did a fake tree for the first time this year, because last year my allergies were killing me with a real tree.  It's been nice not have to worry about it dying. 

Brad holding our snowflake ornaments from our wedding reception. My step-mom created a kids room at the reception and all the kids in attendance decorated Christmas trees for us with these ornaments. Those are special memories from December 18, 2004. :-)

Faith had so much fun when Daddy helped her put the ornaments on the tree! 

Last year, Jillian put on the star at the top of the tree, so this year it was Faith's turn.  Next year, we will let little Anna do it. Brad and I were talking about it and we realized that Anna will be nearly TWO next Christmas!  Ah!!! I know we are getting a little ahead of ourselves, but it really does fly by too quickly! I want to keep Anna my baby for as long as I possibly can. 

I chose to buy this particular Christmas star because of the little pearls on it. Pearls are very sentimental to me. After my mom died, my dad gave my brother, sister, and me some of my mom's jewelry and one of the pieces I received was my mom's pearls. As would be expected, I loved them very much. They were very precious to me and I only wore them on special occasions. 

When Brad and I were dating, he planned a special dinner out and I decided to wear my pearls that night.  I asked Brad to help me put them on when he got to my apartment, when he did, the string broke while he was putting them on me.  I nearly cried when it happened, but Brad immediately and sweetly offered to get them fixed for me at the jeweler as a gift. Well several months passed before he gave them back to me and that was the day he proposed to me (January 8, 2004).  

When I walked into my apartment after a long day at work, I found a trail of rose petals on the ground, beautiful music playing in the background, a dozen roses, and a poem leading me into my bedroom where a dress was laid out for me, along with my mom's pearls. That night Brad asked me to be his wife.  I wore the pearls on the day of our engagement and the day we married.  And in our wedding sermon, our pastor spoke about the parable of the "Pearl of Great Price".



Why do I love pearls? My mom had a collection of Precious Moments and one year (when I was eight or nine years old), my mom decided to give each one of her children a figurine that she felt was a reflection of him/her.  For me, she chose "a loving, gentle, expressive little lady" holding a delicate pearl. :-)  I love that is how my mom viewed me and that she expressed it to me in a thoughtful gift.

Our entire tree is covered with special ornaments. We have several that have a bride and groom in celebration of our December wedding, some from our travels (Eiffel Tower for Paris, Hershey Park, The White House in Washington D.C., a double decker red bus from London, and a cowboy hat from Texas) and lots of home-made ornaments by the girls. 

I love looking at our tree lit up every night! It is such a beautiful time of the year. :-)