Christmas Ornaments

J made a Spotify playlist with over 24 hours worth of Christmas music. That’ll do I thought when I saw the compilation on my iMac. Jingle Bells was blaring through the speakers as we assembled our old plastic Christmas tree. It’s hard to believe we’ve had this fake tree longer than our kids.

I unpack boxes of decorations as each child starts spreading the wired branches that have been bunched up in storage since last Christmas. We call this practice “fluffing the tree”.

This demonstration of spreading the branches would later serve as an illustration for the Jesse tree advent.

In a less spiritually symbolic moment Z starts stringing Mardi gras beads like garland. This has been a tradition for several years now. I think I was at a yard sale that was giving away the colorful beads. Maybe. I know it sounds horrible to say “I don’t remember how I ended up with all of these Mardi gras beads”, but that’s the truth and I thought they would look nice cut up and strung on the tree.

As we collecticely add the stash of ornaments I spot Ezie putting a 5th candy cane on the same droopy branch. I ask him if he has enough and he says nope. I record the whole moment on my phone wanting to cherish the imperfections.

SJ pulls out one of my favorite penguin ornaments and I hijack the delicate bulb before there is an accident. Especially with her fractured wrist she isn’t too graceful and I don’t trust her with glass.

Ah, and then there is Elle. It’s her first time to really experience Christmas. Last year she was a newborn and slept through everything.

This year she is running around like a little elf getting into everything. No really, she does remind me so much of an elf the way she wrinkles her nose and has this chuckle that sounds like a chipmunk. She’s too cute.

I want to remember all of this, but as I go to hang a silver cross ornament on the tree I realize I don’t remember where half of these decorations came from. I used to think I would make a notebook documenting the origin of each ornament. Some were wedding gifts, others souvenirs, others handmade and so on. There is no shortage of variety, that’s for sure. I am like my mom in that we both like the look of an eclectic tree. The problem is I never made that notebook and there are so many stories that I’ve forgotten. In my quest to cherish every little thing I start to get discouraged.

Then there is that subtle prompting from my heavenly father telling me to step back. So I do. Then I look at the tree. It’s not fancy, but I love it. With the cluster of candy canes, the penguin ornaments, the lights, and the scandoulous beads. All of these components make it a Christmas tree.

Sometimes I am guilty of overthinking. Too often I get focused on the details and miss the big picture. I really felt like the Christmas tree was God’s way of reminding me to step back and take it in from a  different perspective. To zoom out if you will. I’m a photographer so that’s how I view it. You can zoom in and focus on one thing and sometimes that’s the right thing to do, but there are other times if your lens is too long you can’t get the whole shot.

It was a special moment that brought me back to the simple joy of Christmas. I don’t remember every little story behind every little ornament, but that’s okay because there is a bigger story here. The story keeps on going and the ornaments keep on coming, and we’ll probably need a bigger tree down the road to hold all of it and that thought makes me happy.

This Christmas I am going to step back more and just take in the whole scene in all of its glorious, twinkling, mismatched imperfections.