I am sitting here staring at my Christmas Tree. This was my year. My year for the PERFECT Christmas tree. I was on a quest. But then, the kids got so excited and we started to put up our tree and my heart took over.
I want to post a photo of It in all it’s perfection but this years tree is far from photo worthy. We can’t even locate the star to put on top. That’s what happens when your kids are 7, 2 and 2.
It’s not flocked, or perfectly woodlandy or themed or uniform. The ornaments are 3 to one limb because they were put there by my seven year old and my toddlers. And my kids and I are in a battle for the lights. Our artificial Costco Christmas tree’s lights switch with a button from a beautiful white, to a multicolored. And when I am not looking my kids change the lights from the beautiful white to the less uniform blinking and twinkling multicolored. Because that’s what they love. A disco techno Christmas Tree.
But when we got the ornaments out, every single ornament is one I remember.
The ornaments I made, of my babies hands and feet when they weren’t even old enough to know what Christmas was. I feel like that was yesterday.
Ceramic rocking horses that say their birthdates. The ornaments the kids have expertly crafted in school. Out of Popsicle sticks and photos and pieces of wood. Paper ornaments from Church. Cross stitched and monogrammed and multi colored and none of them match.
The lack of a color scheme goes against my need for beauty. Or maybe it’s just God’s way of teaching me what is actually beautiful.
Because as I sit here staring at our enormous & kind of messy Christmas Tree I just think about my enormous and kind of messy life. The one that I didn’t even have the imagination to dream of. The life I never knew I would have. With my babies. And my honey. And my laundry and dinners and dreams of my own in between the school pick ups and the diapers.
My life. My blessings. My Christmas.
I am so incredibly grateful for this holiday. The kids are so excited for Santa. I am so excited to see their faces Christmas morning. My little girl is reading every single night the story of Christmas in our advent calendar and I can see that she is finally beginning to understand the reason we celebrate is not just for chocolate or Santa, it is for Jesus. And in my need for perfection and uniformity, the same Jesus is teaching me about his grace. About what is actually beautiful. And this Christmas, none of that involves being perfect.
So, Merry Christmas. I hope your life is as messy and blessed as mine is. I hope your Christmas Tree’s are full of Popsicle sticks and I hope your heart is full of hope knowing we have so much to hope for this Holiday Season.
XO
Brandon
P.S. Yes, that is a Santa ornament on a motorcycle in the photo below. We can discuss that later ?
