Holiday Fun & Our Tree

Today was one of those busy days that make me wary of the holidays.  It was a lot of fun, but it was also just a lot.

I took my middlest daughter with me to our church’s women’s brunch.  She did really well. We both dressed up in our pretty clothes for fun. I think she was charmed by the potluck brunch – so many choices!  Muffins and fresh pineapple.  Wow, does life get any better?  She got to curl up on the lap of one of our friends during one of the speaker’s talks.  I was very pleased with her.

After the brunch, we hurried home, ate a little protein, picked up her older brother and off we went to a birthday party.  It was held at one of my children’s favorite places – a playground of inflatable slides and obstacle courses.  They had an absolute blast.

While we were at the birthday party, we missed a children’s program at church.  I felt bad about that.  I hate having to choose between fun activities like that. 

My husband’s labor during the day was to set up the Christmas tree.  That might not sound like an all-day project, but it included clearing half a dozen boxes of books from our living room, pulling our artificial tree from the attic, assembly, discovering that the lights were defunct, begging some lights off of his parents, and stringing them around the tree.  He took a break in the middle of all that fun to help his Dad extract a 200 lb rock from the spot where they were trying to plant a sapling.  I’m so glad that his spine is still intact.  I think we may offer the rock to Grandpa as a future tombstone.

Why do we do it all?  Well the outings were mostly just for fun.  They had redeeming value in fellowship, and the brunch had worship value.  But, really, they were just for my own satisfaction. 

And the tree?  Do we really need a Christmas tree for Christmas? 

I’m smiling to myself, because the evergreen was originally part of pagan winter religious observances.  Nevertheless, I am all for co-opting pagan symbolism for Christian purposes.  So we set the tree up for tradition’s sake then use it to point our children to Christ.  The evergreen reminds us of the eternal life that Jesus brings.  The shape of the tree points us to heaven, where our hope comes from.  The lights in the tree remind us of all the stars in all the universe, which God created by His glorious will and might.