Deck the Halls!

I love Christmas! Nothing makes a home feel warmer and cozier than Christmas decorations and lights. Most days I turn all the tree and greenery lights on first thing in the morning and leave them on until I go to bed that night! I figure I'm home and I enjoy looking at them, so why not?



This year we decorated on Thanksgiving night so that Pop could be there to help us or to hold Erik Daniel. . . which one do you think he chose???





You guessed it! They were inseparable!



Here I am working on the ribbon with my big helper boy. . .





We usually put our tree in the living room, but because of Erik Daniel's age, we thought it might be easier to put the tree out of his reach!! :-) So, this year we put our tree in the foyer instead! And, it turns out that this was a very wise decision! I don't know what it is about boys and balls, but they are naturally drawn to them! So, every time I let him go near the tree all he sees are the balls! He says, "Baaahhwww! Baaahhhwww!!!!"and he strips the tree of every ball that he can reach!!! Here is the finished product. . .



The stairs. . .
The boys have a tree in their room that is small. We started it two years ago, I think? Their tree has only sports team ornaments on it. My goal is that by the time they are teenagers they will have enough sports ornaments to fill a 7 foot tree! Right now they have 3 Razorback ornaments, 1 UNC ornament, 2 Kansas ornaments, 1 Indiana University ornament, 1 Ole Miss ornament, 1 Mississippi State ornament (they don't know about it yet, though!), and 1 University of Georgia ornament! Their small tree is slowly filling up! Here it is. . .

I am so excited to have all the decor up!!! Yay, Christmas! We also have a Jesse tree which is so precious! This is our first year to do it, and we are loving it so far!! The devotions at night are the perfect length, and I love reading to the boys from my own Bible instead of from a children's Bible. It has inspired me to do that more often! Merry Christmas!

I think it was the day after we put up all the Christmas decorations that it happened. I was washing dishes and listening to one of my favorite Christmas albums ~ Steven Curtis Chapman's first. And, one of the songs caught me completely off guard. I have heard this song a thousand times, but the words were like new to me as I pondered them from a different perspective ~ from the perspective of a daughter-in-love whose mother-in-love has recently gone home to be with Jesus. It is the song Home for Christmas, and Steven wrote it about his grandmother, but every word was true for my Erik's mom. As we celebrate Christmas here, she'll be home singing with the herald angels, heaven's glory on her face. She'll be face to face with Jesus as we celebrate his birth, and this gift will be worth more to her than anything on earth. She'll be home for Christmas.

I love that. It puts all of Christmas in perspective. It is all about the gift of Him who left heaven for a dirty stable, clothed in flesh, who walked among us, loved us, and died for us so that we can live with Him not only right now but for eternity. And, that is why we, believers here on earth, are able to have hope, joy, peace, and love!!