Good morning…
If you look closely at our old weathered tree skirt, you will see that it was handmade in 2001, twenty years ago this Advent season. Red felt. Gold cording. Not sewn but glued. Glittery gold paint captured our children’s names, ages, and handprints. Back then, our kids were six, four, two, and six months old. Born from that crazy blur of a life season, I remember the excitement of creating this family art project, a borrowed idea brought to life in our home.
To me it feels somehow oddly right that our tree this year, twenty years later, looks as droopy as the tree of Charlie Brown. Dry, wimpy, sparsely adorned, she’s losing her needles way before Christmas day. My husband and I picked her out alone in the dark at the Home Deposit parking lot on the last possible night. No kids. No antsy drive to a tree farm. No cutting down the perfect-for-us tree, fresh and fragrant with popping pine cones. We simply said, “It’s good enough,” and tipped the guys who strapped her to the top of our car.
Cherished traditions change, don’t they? Kids change too, along with their parents. And yet we all get to keep our favorite old memories while welcoming the adventure of what might be. Weathering life’s changes with God, each tree skirt, each family member, each passionate person is invited to learn to rest amid the magical mess.
Fresh ideas are always bursting. While my husband and a few visiting young adults sleep, I light a Frazier fur scented candle to fill the quiet room, a loving gift from a newfound friend. Year after year, I hope to welcome the new while holding close my favorites of old.
“It’s good enough,” I expand into a pondering sort of peace.
Grace, mercy, and peace belong to us, flowing from the presence of God the Father and from Jesus Christ, Son of the Father and from the realm of true love (2 John 1:3, TPT).
…Sue…
