Starting Over - Christmas

Starting over for the Christmas season has proven to be interesting.  A few years back I had boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments, villages, lights and all kinds of assorted items designed to bring Christmas cheer. 

This year,  Denise and I found ourselves looking at each other with nothing. Nada, not a thing to decorate for Christmas and a active 2.9 year whose first real Christmas this will be.  I mean as far as noticing her surroundings. 

So we went out, first and foremost we needed the most important of all decorations, the tree. 

How expensive can this be? 

Now two years ago, Denise has purchased a tree after the holidays for 10 dollars, the tree was sitting unfortunately in a storehouse in Florida along with most of our earthly possessions, that we have yet to go down and pick up. 

So we thought, we'll just buy a real one this year. By next year, surely we'll have the real tree. So off we went, thinking a 20 dollar tree was in the works.

We were firmly stopped in our tracks, when the first few lots we went to 50.00 dollars was the least expensive tree. 

50 dollars and still ornaments? This is indeed going to be a long holiday season. 

We continued to search for an affordable tree,it seemed a shame to pay 50 dollars for a tree we will just toss away in a few weeks. 

In the meantime we brought dollar tree ornaments and I snapped up lights as soon as they went  clearance at work.  We were about to give up, when one day we were driving down the road and saw a sigh proclaiming TREES: $20.00 today only!

Thinking of course this was to good to be true, we did a quick u turn and drove into the lot. 

Sure enough, all trees on the lot were 20 dollars. The owner was from Connecut, His wife went into early labor and he had brand new twins waiting for him at home. 

Needless to say he wanted to leave now.

So thanks to driving down the right road at the right time, and God's hand guiding us, we have a tree. With a few ornaments on it. 

and lights. 

Charley Brown would be So proud. His tree looks infinitely better. 

This year, we are going to learn the meaning of Christmas. We won't have much, because we are starting with nothing. We will pass again, another hurdle. 

But it is a good thing to forget about the commercialism of the holiday. This year we will really have to concentrate on the Birth of the Child, Jesus. 

Our focus is on another child. One whose life has been anything but calm the last year. Her Christmas will be Merry, and because of that so will ours. 

So as I go out to the living room to light the tree for Santa and the candle for Jesus and  as Tiny Tim observed..God Bless us everyone......

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...