The Christmas Tree...

E is so excited for Christmas this year. We've read the bible story numerous times since Thanksgiving. She'll tell you that baby Jesus was born just like baby A.

She knows that she'll get presents for Christmas and if she's asked what she wants for Christmas, she'll tell you "presents!". She's very excited. (However, I think she thinks its been Christmas since A was born because she just keeps getting presents...and she loves every one of them!)
She has been so excited to see Christmas lights outside of people's houses and decorated Christmas trees. She loves how 'beautiful' everything looks.

So, I decided that we needed to get a real tree this year. I came up with a plan that included Mom and Dad so that we could use their truck to get the tree home and have the manpower to cut and haul a tree back to the car and still take both kids with us. However, I did not get the plan executed before the cold struck. I decided that it probably wasn't a smart idea to take both kids out in the cold and E was getting impatient for a tree. So, one night when Jut was gone, I pulled our 6-year old $20 fake tree from Tar*get.

The whole time I was putting it together I was ranting in my head about how ugly and pathetic our little tree was...and wishing I would have been able to get that perfect real tree for E. E, on the other hand, was running around. She was yelling, "Happy Christmas!" or "Merry Christmas" the entire time. She was so excited to be putting together the tree! It was about halfway put together and she put her arms around me and said, "Momma, our tree is beautiful!"

So, I decided to put my grumbling away and just looked at our little tree through E's eyes. I cheerfully put up the rest of the tree and when Jut got home, he put up the lights. E was just thrilled with the tree. A couple of days later I pulled out the ornaments and we started decorating the tree and she had more fun pulling out the ornaments and looking at them. She hung them all on the same couple of branches, so I did redistribute some of them. It was a lot of fun to decorate with E. Jut isn't much into decorating the tree (shocker, I know..a guy that doesn't enjoy decorating Christmas trees) and it was fun to have E's excitement and enthusiasm to help me out.

E also LOVES playing with the decorations or 'treasures' around the house. They are getting a little worse for wear...a shepherd lost his hand and a couple of snowman lost their noses...but the joy she is getting out of them is worth it. (Besides all of my real 'treasures' are put up very high out of the reach of little hands!)

Seeing Christmas through little eyes has really helped me enjoy the season. It is much easier to see the magic of the season when you experience with little eyes! ;-)