O Christmas Tree

On Tuesday morning before I left for the airport we...did a lot of things, honestly, because I was trying to get in another "good" school day before I crossed my fingers and left my kids with a list of things to do...but, before I left for the airport on Tuesday we...decorated the Christmas tree!

It used to be the case that my tree would be overburdened with ornaments on the bottom half, but now that so many of my children are trying to prove how tall they are...it actually gets decorated fairly evenly all over without my having to do too much reshuffling (even with Phoebe cramming as much as she can on the lower branches):

At our house we do Eclectic Tree. That's the theme! Every year!

I love it because we get to talk about things we might not otherwise get to talk about. For example, Zoë was intrigued by this beautiful angel ornament that's marked with Karen's name on the bottom. "This must have been Grandma's!" she said. 

"Close!" I told her. "That was a gift some friends gave us to remember her by the year she passed away."

"That was very nice of them."

"It was."

I'm terrible with thank yous. I tried so hard to keep track of all the nice things that everyone did for us in that overwhelming season. And I sent out a lot of thank you cards, but not nearly as many as I should have. Being burdened by the number of thank you cards to write is a wonderful problem, believe me. But I didn't only make the list to feel burdened—the list was also a visual reminder of how many people loved Karen and loved us. 

If I didn't send a thank you card to you for your niceness...know that we probably still talk about it today, that it did make a difference and we did appreciate it. 

People are good. 

Zoë also found this ornament from Paris!

Oh, how this child would love to go to Paris! She diligently studies French every day. 

"That must have been from Grandma's travel tree," I told Zoë. 

"Grandma's...travel..tree?" she asked. 

"Grandma had a little tree that she would put up every year and she would fill it with little ornaments from places she had visited. So every place she went she would look for a little ornament (or a key chain she could turn into an ornament) to represent that place."

"That's pretty cool!" Zoë said. 

It is pretty cool...but I'm not that organized...so everything just gets heaped onto the same ol' tree. 

Eclectic is the theme, remember!

Phoebe wanted Daddy to put the star on the top of the tree:

He did a good job!

Here's Phoebe being excited about another ornament:

And here's all the kids gathering around the tree, which is getting rather full:

Here's Zoë showing off the ornament Uncle Patrick and Hadis picked out at a Christmas market in Vienna:

Although we did put some of Rachel's ornaments on the tree, we also reserved a few for her to put on the tree for herself. And then I guess she'll get to decide whether to keep them lumped in with everyone else's ornaments or whether she puts them in a separate space, starting her own collection of Christmas ornaments. Weird times.

Here are the five kiddos in front of the Christmas tree:

Phoebe's constant attempts to make a peace sign crack me up. Alexander needs to tutor her.

Here are Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe being rather silly (with Benjamin in the background doing something weird):

Shortly after this the kids all fled to do other things while I finished packing. And then I said goodbye to the kid (with minimal crying) and left for Las Vegas...which is in Pacific Time for some reason, which is hard because I feel like it should be in Mountain Time...and therefore keep forgetting what time it is at home.

This is only really a problem when I want to call home to talk to the kids. 

Or when the Relief Society president calls me (yesterday) to try to get ahold of Miriam and asks if now would be a good time to call Miriam and I...literally had to ask her what time it was there to think about whether Miriam would be home from music lessons or not.