Angels on high take flight

Christmas time is officially here.  I only had to get after Arthur a few times for jumping the gun on singing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. This past weekend I pulled out our plethora of Christmas decorations.  This year it was fun to see the "new" ornaments Arthur brought to our marriage. (So actually Arthur didn't bring the ornaments- his mother did.  He saw them hanging on the tree and had no idea how they got into our house.)  We both have little rocking horse ornaments from our first Christmases back in 1987- rocking horses must have been really popular then.  I was also really excited to unwrap Arthur's nativity set to find it had 3 camels-- I'm not sure why camels are so thrilling but they are. 

There were also several decorations I made over the years in 4-H crafts.  4-H arts and crafts projects have provided quite a bit of the decor in our home.  

Since we had such a collection of ornaments we were going to need a tree.  I stopped by a second hand store a few weeks ago and was able to pick one up that someone had dropped off just hours before.  It as the perfect size for our living room.  I would like to pause briefly to make a point.  True Christmas trees are real, live, grown happily on a tree farm trees are raised with tender loving care.  As an alumnus of the summer Christmas tree trimming crew for several years this is important.  It almost ruined my relationship with Arthur. But that might be a story for another blog.  Anyway, this year we have a fake Christmas tree which means we will have a little less Christmas joy in our home without the scent of pine or fir permeating the air.  I set up the tree, put on the strings of lights, (a good rule of thumb is whenever you think you have enough twinkly lights, add 1 more strand) and hung the ornaments.  Arthur had several ornaments he had received over the years from his grandparents.  I have several snowman ornaments from my grandma and my parents always seem to get us quirky ornaments that have some significance to the activities of the past year.  I also have a collection of angel ornaments that I have gotten each year.  The series started the year I was born.  It's always exciting to see the new design for the ornaments each year.  

I carefully finished decorating the tree.  Next I moved onto to setting up the Nativity scene with the great camels.  While I was distracted with the awesome camels, the tree behind me toppled to the floor.  Angels were catapulted across the room.  Reindeer and Santas were scattered to and fro.  There was one causality that was fixed with some super glue- the handy gal's secret weapon.  The tree was returned to the upright position and then secured it with several volumes of Arthur's boring textbooks-- at least they are good for something.  I then redecorated the tree after I crawled all over the floor trying to find angels that had landed under furniture around the room.   After finishing a few other finishing touches our Christmas decorating was finally complete.  Now we can kick back, relax, drink hot chocolate while enjoying the lights on the tree. Omnia Vincit Amor.