Life With THIS Family: O Christmas Tree

I am so sorry for the delay...I know you've been on the edge of your seat waiting for Part Two of the putting-up-of-the-Evans-Christmas-tree saga. Here you go...if you haven't read Part One yet, you simply must. You just won't appreciate Part Two without first reading Part One.

Oh, happy day! Thursday was the 'put up the Christmas tree' day in the Evans' home and what a happy day it was! Aside from the, "Mommy, is it time to put up the tree yet?" about every 4 minutes from one of the kids, it was a pretty peaceful event. The tree was still heavy and awkward, and we still had to spend some time shaping the branches to make it look pretty. But how glorious it was to put it up, plug in the lights (that I didn't have to string myself) and VOILA! It was done! And the best part...IT'S IN THE LIVING ROOM!! Oh, it is just so pretty. I am so pleased. My mood was even good enough that I got out the camera...

Now, when it was time to put the angel on the top of the tree, we hit a little snag. Our beautiful angel would not stay on. She kept falling (headfirst) forward or sideways or backwards. Apparently our old tree had a much longer branch on the top and the angel always balanced properly. Our new tree has a shorter top branch making our angel a little top-heavy. Interestingly, we spent all week last week learning about balance and center of gravity in Science. So, like any good homeschooling mom would do, I turned this into a lesson (my mood was even patient enough to do this). The problem - our angel's center of gravity was too high, causing her to fall over. The solution - we must lower her center of gravity. How? Any ideas? Caleb's idea was to tape some rocks to the bottom of the angel. Her upper body is ceramic and her underside is just a sheet of plastic rolled into a cone shape. Her lovely dress hides this plastic cone. So Caleb thought we should just duct tape some rocks to the plastic cone. I guess it's true that men will use duct tape to fix anything! This would work, I told him, but what else could we do? Any other ideas? Jacob's brain was obviously still fried from school that day. He had a long week with Pre-Algebra (which means I did too), and his expression was completely blank. Abbi's idea was to remove the plastic cone from under the angel's dress altogether. What we did instead (after discussing the role the plastic cone played in the angel's center of gravity) was to cut about 3 inches off the plastic cone. This brought her center of gravity lower, and much to the kids' skepticism when I told them this should work, she stayed on top of the tree! YAY! But, of course, I'm too short (even standing on the top step of the ladder...the one that says Do Not Stand On Or Above This Step - YOU CAN LOSE YOUR BALANCE) to get the angel on our new, 9 ft. tree. So, it was Daddy to the rescue!

Our cat, Phoebe, had great fun while we put up the tree. Normally, this would've been a nuisance and I would've locked her in my room to keep her out of everything. Not this year! This year it was so cute how she snuggled right in underneath the tree. And how she thought she was little enough to fit in one of the boxes. Um, Phoebe, your rear end is sticking out. That is so unbecoming on a lady!

Toby was just content to be in the middle of everything as he gnawed on his bone.

The boys were obviously the first to get to the ornaments box. These were the first two ornaments to grace our new tree.

These are two of my favorite ornaments. The glass nativity above always goes front and center on the tree. I love to look at it and be reminded of the reason for Christmas!

The ornament below always goes somewhere near the nativity ornament shown above. It's another one that I like to have front and center where it can always be seen. This photo of the kids (taken in 2000) always makes me smile no matter how often I look at it.

The ornament below is another family favorite. We watch The Christmas Story at least once every Christmas season...it's a classic! I admit that before meeting Jon I hadn't even heard of this movie, let alone seen it. He was appalled, on our first Christmas together, that I had no idea what the movie was even about! And now, 14 Christmases later, it's a family tradition.