Trimmed in Memories

We are on the mend! Issa and I are fully recovered, and Evan is on the way. I do have a little helper home with me, but he's currently doing his best sharp tooth impression while watching The Land Before Time. We are on the upswing.

Even though we were a little punk yesterday, we wanted a little holly jolly in our day. So...we decided to trim the tree. It's a nice quiet project.

For the first time, Issa did her very own string of popcorn and cranberries:
I gave her an upholstery needle, which made life much easier--she always had some needle to hold onto no matter how big the cranberry was.

Daddy got to tackle the lights:

You can tell how much he loves tackling the lights. I like my Christmas along the magnitude of 12 million; I think he would be okay with a magnitude of ten. He does it for me, and I love him for that.

Then...the magic...the ornaments:

Our tree is a memory tree. Every ornament has a story or special event: a trip to the museum, a craft made at school, a gift, a favorite hobby for the year. Telling the stories is as much fun as hanging them on the tree. Issa pulled out box after box, telling the story--mostly the right stories. I laugh at the band of ornaments right at her eye level. (We would have taken pictures, but it was all hands on deck to make sure the ornaments made it on the tree in one piece. It was all just too exciting.) I could rearrange the ornaments to make it a bit more even, but this picture will be one more memory for the tree.