We are striving to simplify Christmas this year. Having two places to make festive is enough stress without adding in too much expectation. It was a bit overwhelming last year – too easy to forget the joy of the birth of Jesus! So, we are trying to keep it simple.
For those who read last year’s minor Christmas season meltdown, I have learned a few things.
- My heart needs Christmas music and festive decoration in both locations – otherwise, half of my time is spent not “feeling” like it’s Christmas.
- The 12 foot tree is too much – ever. Got an 8′ real tree at the “fancy house”.
- Being involved in church activity reminds my heart of the reason for the season – so, Christmas play is a priority
- Thanksgiving wasn’t too long ago. I am striving to remain thankful for my healthy husband, the farm that God has directed us to, my family (with all our imperfection), and the general blessings that are too many to list out.
- Part of my joy of the holidays actually is putting up the decorations. It’s okay if that takes days and is completed around December 24th.
So in this effort to simplify, we took the first chance we had to make a new kind of memory. A memory I have never made with my bio children. A special memory that the two youngest children get to be the first to experience. (This does not happen often!) We searched the farm together for a Christmas tree.
This was a fantastic, imperfect, messy, not Hallmark experience. We don’t have a Christmas tree farm. Last year we searched the farm for an acceptable tree and gave up. This year – we lowered the standard! hahahahaha! Farmer man must cut down 50 small pine trees a week. Surely, this one year we could just find ONE that would work. How cool would it be to have a tree of from our farm. (I did follow in my sister’s footsteps – they did the same)
So on our rare day alone with the teenagers on the farm. We went tree hunting!
We chose the one we thought would look the best and Farmer man cut it down for us. Actually, he cut down four or five (that were going to be cut down soon anyway) and we took the best looking one. The girls drug it back to the house.
So, drumroll please . . .
We laughed and looked sideways, and laughed some more. If it were 1/3 the size, it would be a Charlie Brown tree. But, as it is, I’m not sure what to call it – except OUR Farm tree, off from OUR farm, cut by Farmer Man and decorated with handmade ornaments. We will add to the ornaments through the season because keeping the grandchildren busy in the cold winter might as well produce something useful.
It’s so ugly, it’s kind of cute. It has character. It’s not what it looks like on the outside, but the experience as a family that counts. So, we laugh – as a family. We have no one to impress and this is a memory for sure.
The fancy tree will be prettier, it will hold older memories of children now grown, it will hold 75 year old glass ornaments handed down by grandparents, and many angels and music notes. It will fill the front window and I will appreciate the beauty of it. But, I am sure I will never forget cutting an ugly little pine tree off from our farm with Lexie and Candice and then trying (without much success) to make it look like a normal Christmas tree.
Just for the record, I don’t think there is such a thing as normal Christmas tree or a normal family. It there was a definition, I’m pretty sure my family would rebel against the idea of being normal anyway! So, abnormal, unique, interesting, crazy . . . that’s us!
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