Family Night with a Christmas Touch

On the previous post Heather wrote about having the kids help decorate the tree, so tonight we had the Kearls come over and help us decorate the bottom three feet of the tree. Everybody helped, including little Caleb.

Some of the tree branches had five or six ornaments on them, but we had fun talking about how we got the alligator in the inner tube, and the accordion, and why the canoe with the writing about David was special. We talked about our first Christmas when Janene and I had only been married a month. We had no money, so we mail ordered a kit that included little wooden ornaments that we cut out ourselves out of mahogany and then hand painted every day until Christmas to make our first set of decorations. We were so proud of these cute little things.

After the kids went home, Janene did a little bit of adjusting (just to make sure the branches wouldn't be so overloaded that they broke)

I tried to get an idea of what a Christmas tree like ours looks like to a two year old kid. I realized that they can't even see the angel on top.

 The highlight of the evening was when Elsie turned off all the lights except the Christmas lights and then narrated the Christmas story complete with angelic visitations to Mary and Joseph using the children's nativity set that Brooke got us this year. The boys actually sat still for a few minutes and we had a small peaceful moment. There is something to be said about being old enough to be grandparents. They have all gone home now, and the house just a little too quiet. (nothing but little mice stirring under the couch.)