Christmas is coming...

I have a snowman with changeable numbered blocks sitting on my fireplace mantle telling me that there are 20 days left until Christmas...just this afternoon I changed the numbers on it from 24 days.  Seems I'm not keeping up with how quickly the season is moving along.

My husband and I had the opportunity to go out to a completely worthy Christmas event tonight, and yet we passed.  With so much to do I didn't want to feel rushed in one of my favourite events of the season - decorating the Christmas tree.  Part of me dreads it, quite honestly.  The work is daunting.  All the boxes and tissue paper.  All the taking down of regular pictures and decor, and finding spaces for them in the vacated Christmas boxes.  That part I could live without.

But the part where I get to take out my tree ornaments is such a happy, reminiscing time.  I know there are lots of you who relate to that.  You know the stunning trees in the malls and public places have their charm, but they hold nothing on MY tree (actually I need two trees now with all the ornaments I've collected and my kids have collected over the years).  My tree holds the story of my blessings in life.

I always put the favourite ones up first - giving them the places of most notice.  And it takes me a long time to get them all up, mostly because of the sentiment behind them.  My precious moments Nativity always goes in the front towards the top.

Then my Mary Englebreit collection of ornaments...my feel happy, brightly coloured inspirational ones.

 There are the student gift ornaments that I have started attaching labels to so I remember each precious student as I set them out.  Ornaments from friends.  Ornaments from grandparents now gone.

And ornaments that remind me of Christmas 2006 when my Dad passed away so suddenly 6 days before Christmas.   Seems hardly possible that this will be my 5th Christmas without him.   As I look through my collection of ornaments, my heart is filled with gratitude for the people in my life.  Friends that share my joy and pain.  Family that have made my life full of hope and love.

I wouldn't miss an evening like this for anything.  Even as I sit writing this amidst the boxes and chaos and anticipate tomorrow's clean-up... I'm knowing that the looking back moment of tonight is a necessary, soul-filling tradition I wouldn't want to miss.

I guess the downstairs tree is going to have to wait until tomorrow, though.  My Handel's Messiah CD is done (another tree decorating tradition for me) and it's late.  Time to blow out the candles and just rest.