Putting up Christmas Tree

Sat. Nov 29th Today was a very very special day for me. Almost every year (except for last year while I was in Rapid City) on the weekend after Thanksgiving it has been a tradition for me (and the family) to get out the Christmas Tree and put it up. I have been a total Christmas fanatic all my life and my family has “put up with it” in the past but last year we found out just how much it meant to all of us as a family. Julie almost couldn’t put up the tree last year, but with Josh’s help they did get it up eventually but it wasn’t until later in December. So this year everyone asked me if we were going to put it up this weekend and my response to everyone was something like “Well duhhhh.. is there any question?” Unfortunately I was not doing very well physically and had to take some medication to help me through the day and I spent most of the time sitting in my “special” chair in the family room and watching. We got all the Christmas stuff out and got the tree ready but I waited until Josh and Kirby came over before we actually put it up. I took some time to tell him that I was officially making “the putting up of the tree” his “shared” responsibility. This means that as long as I am here, he had to help me and when I am not here (for whatever reason) he is responsible to see to it that the tree gets put up for his mother in my honor (and I assured him I would still be there one way or another). I don’t think any of us ever realized just how important this tradition meant to us all. We were all here today. All the kids at were helping first and Julie got off work in time to do the lights and ornaments). Even though I sat in the chair and just watched there were a couple of things that stood out as really neat experiences. I watched as Julie and Kirby worked together on the lights. It was neat to see how they worked together and Kirby asked about the way that we do it to make sure she didn’t disrupt the tradition. Then as they started putting up the ornaments I saw Julie have moments of remembering experiences and events that each ornament represented. I realized that this tree had more than just a “tradition of putting it up”, but it represented our lives experiences and memories in a box that we relive once a year together. This was quite a revelation to me. What a wonderful day.