The great gift of Christmas

Decorated our "indoor" tree finally.

I wasn’t going to. We got it in and the lights on and then, when no one seemed interested in hanging the ornaments, I found I didn’t mind. I told Donny we might just leave it as it is and he didn’t go for it, so I brought up two of the boxes. On the top of the first box were two “theme” bags, one with birds, the other with angels. Henry was enamored right away by both, so we put a few on while we were home alone. Later, Grandpa helped and Angie hovered, and we were amazed at Henry’s dexterity with branches and hooks. He did a fine job, and the balls that sparkle were also among his favorites.

Man, I used to be such an ornament collector. I can remember buying $8 ornaments not too many years ago (well…maybe ten). Then a year or so back, my mom quit decorating as much and gave each of us kids some of the baubles from back when we were growing up. Looking at them last night, I felt bad that I’d considered skipping it, and not just for Henry’s sake. I can still remember going down into the really dank canning room in the basement of my parent’s home to gather up the cobwebby boxes of decorations, and now they’re in my own dank (if not as bad) basement room, and when I look at them…well…I love the darn things. There’s nothing like them now. There’s some sort of charm in the old stuff, which I think, when it’s personal old stuff, comes of the way you saw it as a child.

It seems to me like the great gift of Christmas – seeing with the eyes of a child – seeing with wonder.