Tree Time

Well our tree is up and Lisa would be proud that I got it completed on her normal schedule. As we always have, Matt and I got out early Saturday morning and found a tree. It’s a bit depressing finding a tree for our little farm house. In years past, when we lived at the old house, we could buy the biggest tree on the lot and it would fit. The old house had a very high vaulted ceiling, in contrast, the farm house has eight foot ceilings.

Matt and I reminisced a good bit Saturday. He remembered the year that we cut a huge Leyland Cypress tree off of our friends farm. That thing had to be about twenty foot tall. It reached to the top of the staircase just outside of Matt’s old bedroom. He talked about how he used to look down on the tree and how different it looked from up high looking down. I suppose all those memories got him to thinking about his mother. Matt never talks about his mother but this weekend for the first time that I can remember he told me he was “missing mom” . We talked about that for a little while. As you can imagine, that’s the sort of thing that hits you right in the gut and leaves one without any appropriate words of comfort. I just told him that I too missed her and that I missed her every day. I reminded him how much she loved him and told him that I understand his pain. He and I continued to plow through the process and got the tree fitted to the stand and brought in the house. That’s about all either of us could stand for the day. Although Abby had told me to go ahead without her, we decided to wait on her to decorate our little tree.

Sunday evening we finally got together and decorated that tree. Abby insisted that we put on some Christmas music to listed to while we worked through things. Probably the hardest part of the whole process is unwrapping each of the ornaments. So many of them have a special meaning and bring back particular memories. With this being our third Christmas without Lisa, I think the kids have gotten used to the fact that I can only do so much and that I need to work through the holidays in short stages. We got the tree finished and I told them that the rest of the house would have to wait till I could emotionally recharge a little. I finished the night out by making the kids some strawberry crepes.

With getting the tree up it dawned on me that I have not done the first bit of Christmas shopping. I have been so focused on getting things done around the house and farm that I had complete missed the fact that Christmas is only a short four weeks away. With that in mind, I scheduled my little shopping buddy (Abby) to spend this coming Friday at the mall. “Yippy Skippy” ! There is nothing I hate more than spending the day at the mall. On the bright side, I do get to spend the day with my baby girl Abby.