Decorating

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas decorations. On the one hand, I love to have my house decorated. I love the lights and the festive atmosphere it creates. On the other hand I hate to wrestle out the 8 ft fake tree, to put the lights on it and I especially hate the thought of coming home after holiday travel to take it down. This year I had almost convinced myself to not even decorate but when I invited my friend Melanie over for dinner got inspired....well kind of inspired. Instead of putting the massive fake tree up, I opted for the tiny (about 2 ft) tree that I bought the year the guys borrowed my tree for the student Christmas party but refused to give it back.

There's something sweet about pulling out your Christmas decorations every year. Each one of them holds a special memory. There are the wooden ornaments that represent my tree growing up - we always had the German ornaments on our tree (we also had real candles but that was put to a stop by the tree catching on fire one year). There's the white and silver snowdrop ornaments that I bought the my first year out of college. There used to be 6 of them - only 4 survived from the year my roommate tried to surprise me by "decorating" our tree - unfortunately she put it up crooked and it fell over in the middle of the night. There's the silver bells that I bought after the unfortunate tree falling incident - a little more sturdy than the glass balls. There is the silver Fleur de lis representing the first GNO team.

Memories seem to flood back whenever I decorate for Christmas - good and bad memories. I realized that I like being alone with those memories. They remind of the years - of the faithfulness of God over all the years. It causes me to remember people who are no longer part of my every day life and places that I've long left behind.

In the end, it's worth it to drag out all of the stuff - to clean up fake pine needles for weeks and to have to pack it all back up in January. It is a season that should be celebrated - not rushed, but savored for the sweet gift of that baby it brought us so long ago.